


The Krypton Factor

by thisiszircon



Category: Ashes to Ashes (UK TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 53,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26178418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiszircon/pseuds/thisiszircon
Summary: The ever-bombastic Lord Scarman has launched an initiative intended to bring the Police Forces of the country together: a contest based on the popular television show 'The Krypton Factor'.Scarman's visit to Fenchurch East CID has left a black mark on the whole station.  The team has therefore been ordered to field a competitor.  Preferably one who won't make the station look utterly inept.Small wonder Gene Hunt is in a right old mood...
Relationships: Alex Drake/Gene Hunt, Shaz Granger/Chris Skelton
Comments: 30
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

Wednesdays.

Bloody Wednesdays.

Of all the days of the week, Alex Drake hated Wednesdays the most. They were endless, dreary, nothing-days. Wednesdays were neither close enough to the coming weekend to feel like a break was on the horizon, nor soon enough after the last weekend to still feel energised.

Bloody buggering Wednesdays.

And _January_ Wednesdays? They were the worst. January was like the Wednesday of months. Christmas and New Year were over. Spring was a couple of months away. January was just a grey, cold, bleak, 'British Rail waiting room' of a month.

True to form, this particular Wednesday was dull and distraction-free. Fenchurch East CID was mired in its depression. There'd been no major cases for two weeks. It seemed that even the criminals had lost their sense of motivation.

Alex was trying to keep busy. Several months had passed since she'd relived her worst childhood trauma, and there was still no sign of an exit from this world, back to the one she had to consider 'real'. Therefore she'd come to a decision: so long as she remained here, she should try to function according to this world's context. No more, 'Good morning, constructs.' No more treating the world as some kind of game: an interactive role-playing game of which she'd been made a reluctant part. Until she got some kind of clue as to what it all meant, she'd just keep going. She'd keep busy.

Which was why she'd spent the last couple of weeks reading up on East London's organised crime gangs. Alex had collected all the background information that CID could provide, and she'd studied, absorbed and finally started to organise it.

She was, alas, almost alone in her industry.

Across the office, Ray had been more or less glued to page three of _The Sun_ for the duration. Alex had been considering having a T-shirt printed especially for him. One which would bear the legend: 'I am heterosexual, honest.'

Chris, meanwhile, had perfected his technique of balancing a Smartie on the end of a ruler sticking out from his desk like a pirate ship's plank, then twanging the ruler and sending the Smartie into the air, to catch it in his mouth. He'd got rather good at it. At this point he only managed to hit himself in the eye with a sugary projectile every fifth attempt or so.

Only Shaz had been helping Alex. Even a slog of a research project was a better use of Shaz's time than the constant demands for tea and biscuits. She'd gathered files as requested, made herself available when Alex needed to talk all the underworld's connections through out loud, and in the process she'd probably learned as much as Alex herself. Together they'd been putting together a handy file for the office, listing alphabetically the East End's likeliest suspects, with an index cross-referencing location and gang affiliation. Roll on decent database software; but for now this would be a helpful alternative.

The rest of CID had been sneering at them. From a distance, anyway: Alex was, after all, a superior officer. They seemed to consider this organisation of information as nothing more than a feminine craft project. She and Shaz had ignored the sneers.

And then there was the Guv. He didn't do well when he had no case to get his teeth into. Never the most even-tempered of individuals, he was taking 'fractious' to new heights. They'd all been keeping out of his way. Even Alex. This, in spite of the new amiability to their working relationship, discovered during the empty days over Christmas: days when it had seemed as if they were the only two officers of Fenchurch East CID with nowhere better to go.

That amiability had dissipated in the January gloom. Alex wondered if it made her a bad person to hope that some psycho out there in cloud cuckoo land might do them all a favour and start chopping people up.

She sighed and snuck a look at her watch as she leaned back in her chair. Two in the afternoon, just gone. Four hours to fill until she could justify leaving the office. And then six more hours to fill, probably with drinking, until she could justify trying to go to sleep. Christ. It was enough to make her wish that the scary visions would start up again. At least they'd helped pass the time.

Alex had always hated Wednesdays.

With a self-important rattle – or so it seemed – the door to the Guv's office was dragged open. Hunt came striding through, holding a piece of paper as if it was contaminated with something unpleasant. His mouth was a thin line of distaste. Admittedly it hadn't been much else for the last two weeks.

"Right, then. Listen up, you lot," he announced.

Not far from where he'd stopped, Chris pelted himself in the eye with a Smartie and yelped an, "Ow!" Hunt turned to glare at him. Chris muttered, "Sorry, Guv."

"Any more sweetie-stunts, or can I get on?" Hunt asked. No one met his eyes. "Thank you. Right. We've been invited to participate in one of these team-bollocks-initiatives. Seems that one of the things identified in our dear Lord Scarman's report was the absence of something called 'morale building exercises'." He began to paraphrase the memo in his hand. "In order to bring the constabularies of this country together, a competition is to be held. To prove the mettle of the Great British copper."

"Please tell me it isn't paint-balling," Alex said.

Hunt turned to look at her. He was wearing his 'what the hell are you talking about?' scowl. Alex tried to remember when paint-balling had become the corporate jaunt of choice.

"Never mind," she said after a moment.

"Not to worry, Bolly-kecks," Hunt went on. "You're in the clear. No paint. No balls." Ray sniggered. Chris might have too, except he was still trying to find the stray Smartie that had disappeared somewhere between his arse and his chair. "You're all familiar with _The Krypton Factor_?"

Alex gave a nostalgic laugh. "Oh, god. Gordon Burns!"

"I'm sure he does. Anyway, that's what this bollocks is. There's going to be heats within each constabulary to find their 'champion', then a series of finals. And Superintendent Wilcox – who as you all know is in line for retirement this coming March, and who no doubt wants to go out in a blaze of glory – is looking for volunteers from this station to take part."

Hunt scanned the faces of his CID team. Alex considered their options; they were thin on the ground. Half of the team were in no shape to take on the assault course that tested physical fitness. And the closest most of the rest could come to mental agility was filling in the nearest tabloid's crossword with a selection of swear-words that had no bearing on the clues.

"Yeah. S'what I thought," Hunt said. "Problem is, Scarman spoke to Wilcox after his visit here last October. I'm sure you all remember the day in question." None of them needed a reminder, Alex least of all. "Turns out that our trophy cabinet didn't quite pass muster. Didn't convince his lordship that we take our competitive spirit seriously. So the Super's added a personal note. Fenchurch East CID _will_ field at least one contestant for the Met's heats."

Everyone seemed to groan and mutter and study their desk. Everyone except Alex.

Ray said, "What about you, Chris?"

Chris said, "Sod off."

"Don't think so, Raymondo," said Hunt. "One of the rounds is called 'Intelligence'."

Ouch. Though Chris looked less bothered and more relieved at this insult, which probably proved Hunt's point.

Hunt turned to the end of the office occupied by the desks of Gordo and Thaddeus. "Jones? You're in better shape than most o' this bloated lot."

DC Thaddeus Jones – a man in his late twenties of Afro-Caribbean descent – looked startled at being singled out. "Well, I might be able to handle the assault course, Guv," he conceded, "but the rest of it? Them puzzles with the blocks? And the general knowledge? I'm crap at general knowledge."

"Well, unless all the questions're about cricket," Gordo said. "You're shit-hot on the cricket."

Hunt gave a sigh. "It'd be my strong preference, gentlemen, not to have to nominate someone." Alex bristled at the gender-specific nature of this statement. "Anyone here think they could do a better job than our Thad?"

Thad looked like he wanted to crawl under his own desk. Alex rolled her eyes and glanced at Shaz, to see Shaz looking back. They both knew that they were the only real contenders, just as they both knew that the rest of the office would be outraged at the idea. Alex gave a shrug. Shaz nodded in resignation.

"Guv," Alex said. "Can I see the memo?"

Hunt grunted and handed it to her. "Don't think they like you completing an assault course in high heels, Bols."

She snorted. "I run faster in high heels than at least four of the blokes in this office." She scanned the details. "Okay, the Met's heats start next week. Physical fitness rounds first, at some outdoor pursuits centre down in Dorking. Main competition is the week after – in the Central Hall conference centre in Westminster." She glanced up at Hunt. "So there's likely to be an audience, then?"

"Apparently that's the point," Hunt said. "Cheering on your colleagues. Marvelling at their physical and mental prowess." The look of distaste on his face was almost comical.

Alex nodded and shot one more look at Shaz, giving her the time to back out, then she gave a big sigh and handed the memo back. "Shaz and I will volunteer. Anyone present have a problem with a pair of women representing Fenchurch East CID?" she asked loudly.

Thad said, "Not me, ma'am. Definitely not. Behind you all the way." He shot her a grateful smile when she looked at him. And while the support was nice to have, Alex had to acknowledge that it was nakedly self-serving.

Hunt pouted down at her for a moment, then he turned to pout at Shaz. Then he finally returned his attention to the rest of CID and said, "No one in the room's the least bit embarrassed that the best we have to offer is a pair o' split-arses?"

"You could always volunteer yourself, Guv," Alex said, ignoring the offensive language.

Hunt frowned. "Doesn't really seem fair on the rest of 'em, does it?" He sniffed. Alex smirked. Under the bravado she'd detected just the hint of self-mockery. "Fine. I'll go and tell the Super that we've got two contenders, and not a chest-hair between 'em." He walked over to the door. "And before you lot get to thinking you just managed to snatch your knackers out of the fire? Remember this. Team effort, lads. Whatever happens in the heats, DI Drake and WPC Granger are going out there with the full support of this office. You will be in attendance, and you will be cheering like bastards. The girls want time off to train, _you_ pick up their slack. You hear anyone snigger when they fall over in the mud on the assault course? You punch with extreme prejudice." He drew his shoulders back. "They may be a flimsy pair o' tarts, but they're _our_ tarts. Until this bollocks is all over, you are their fan-club. Understood?"

The office was filled with a half dozen men all muttering, "Yes, Guv." Some reluctant, some amused.

"Good. Right." He shouldered open the main doors to CID and completely undermined his last batch of backhanded compliments with a shout to Shaz of, "Tea, Granger. Five sugars."

Alex and Shaz looked at each other. In moments such as these it was hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

~~~

"You know," Alex said later over her second glass of wine, "I'm perfectly capable of climbing a tower, swinging down a zip-slide and getting my feet a bit muddy."

"No, I'm just saying," Gene told her. She only let him be 'Gene' outside the office these days. "It's all in the landing. You can lose seconds if you come in to land all wrong. And the more mud you get on your tracksuit, the more weight you're carrying."

"It's almost as if you want me to do well."

"Well, obviously. Since the rest o' my team's a bunch of lily-livered cretins, you're all there is. Don't want you letting me down."

She arched a sardonic brow. "Oh, so no pressure, then?"

"What the hell are you talking about? Of course there's pressure. There's a lot o' ruddy pressure. Wilcox has always hated me. Scarman hates me too. They'll both of 'em find a way to blame it on me if you put in a poor show."

Alex blew out her lips in a disbelieving laugh. "Well it's different, I'll give you that," she said. "Usually in moments like these the advice is to do your best, and it's the taking part that counts."

"It is _not_ the taking part that counts, it's the not making a complete arse of yourself."

"Fine. We'll do our best not to make a complete arse of ourselves."

Gene nodded slowly. "All in the landing, Bols."

"There's more to _The Krypton Factor_ than one stage of an assault course."

"It can make or break the whole round."

"Understood. We get a practice day next week, you know. All the contestants are allowed to complete the course in their own time. Just to familiarise themselves with it. You should come along." She looked at him over the rim of her wine glass. "Offer some pointers."

"I'm busy," he said. "I'm washing my hair."

"Very droll. See, I'd have thought that you'd relish the chance to watch me and Shaz rolling about in some mud."

He darted a look at her, then looked away. "Don't think they let you do the assault course in bikinis, either."

Alex gave a theatrical sigh. "No. But there's all those water obstacles. Plastering my tracksuit right over my body." She squirmed in her chair. He deserved this kind of treatment after the last couple of weeks of grouchiness. "Sweat glistening on my brow, mud streaking my face, eyes wild with determination. And of course I might need a bunk up over the wall–"

"Fine. I'll be there."

"Of course you will," she said, and saluted him with her glass. "This is about team-building, after all."

"Shouldn't you be off the booze if you're in training?"

"Piss off. You're bloody lucky to have me right now."

"Remains to be seen, Bols." Gene leaned back and sank some more beer before he went on, "See, what Scarman and his airy-fairy report fails to note is this. It is _not_ about team-building. It is about winning."

Alex leaned on an elbow and considered him. "And if I do well – what then?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just asking. If I manage to do well in this competition, maybe even make it through to the finals–"

Gene made a scoffing sound that could have been a laugh. Alex ignored him.

"What's my incentive, Gene?" she asked. "See, I'm going to need more than the idea of wiping the smirk from Lord Scarman's face. What have you got?"

He stared back at her. "What do you want?"

She let her eyebrow flutter suggestively, but she kept her answer neutral enough. "A little bit of respect," she said. "For me and for Shaz. From this moment until the time we're expelled from the competition, I want you doing exactly what you told the rest of the team to do. That means no sneering, no sniggering, no gloom-and-doom predictions about our ability. And you will absolutely not refer to us as 'split-arses' for the duration. We are two competent police officers who have taken it on our shoulders – sparing the rest of you, I might add – to represent our team. You treat that with the respect it deserves."

Gene sat up and leaned over the table at her. "What makes you think I wasn't going to do that anyway?"

"Six months of your acquaintance," she replied smoothly.

He pouted for a moment, then he sniffed and said, "Fine. From now until you're out of the competition. Not like you're going to make it past the heats. S'only two weeks."

"Um – respect?" she reminded him.

"Right. Forgot." He raised a half-hearted fist and punched the air. "Er, get in, there, Team Fenchurch."

Alex smirked. "Better." She eased back and finished her wine, then she waved the glass at Luigi for a refill. "Of course, respect for Shaz means that you don't get to treat her like a glorified tea-lady for the duration."

Gene spluttered into his pint.

~~~

The following week, at an outdoor pursuits centre a little south of Dorking, the competition became less of an idea and more of an uncomfortable reality. It was a grey and overcast afternoon. Only coppers would be barmy enough to voluntarily put themselves through this kind of punishment at this time of year. At least, Alex considered, it had all become something of a distraction.

She and Shaz had taken to coaching each other on their general knowledge, assisted by a paperback book full of pub-quiz questions that Chris had picked up. Alex was pretty sure nothing within its pages would serve them well, but it was a good exercise. She used to test very well. She had the kind of memory that allowed her to perform under examination pressure. Shaz did too, Alex thought. Though Shaz's areas of expertise were limited, she was a mine of frequently surprising information.

Today, however, was all about the physical assault course. Just a practice run, necessary according to health and safety, since people actually managed to injure themselves on this site. The group of contestants had all walked the course with some ex-military guy who now earned his living treating a bunch of civilians like they were sulky cadets. There were twelve of them altogether at this session; in numbers they'd make up three of the sixteen heats that would take place over the coming couple of weeks. Alex had already noted that they were trying to keep close colleagues apart for those heats, which meant she and Shaz would be competing on different days rather than against each other. There'd be sixteen winners, to be whittled down to four in a series of play-offs. Those four would go on to take part in the nationwide finals.

Like the rest of her fellow competitors, Alex had been allocated a tracksuit to wear: black, with a coloured stripe down the arms and legs. She was red. Shaz was blue. The clothing was early-eighties Adidas: nasty, scratchy, uncomfortable polyester. It didn't really matter. It had been raining steadily for almost a week, and Greater London didn't usually manage temperatures so wintry that they might freeze the mud on a course that was seeing some use. Ten seconds into the assault course, Alex suspected that she was going to be wearing half a field.

Gene and Chris stood to one side, smoking like chimneys. Chris had appointed himself Shaz's 'trainer' and insisted on coming along to offer support. They weren't alone. A few other officers – and some spouses, Alex thought – were there to cheer on their contestant of choice. And it wasn't even competition day yet. There was just the tiniest sliver of a chance that Lord Scarman had got something right; this did seem to be engendering some team-spirit, after all.

Shaz's arm bumped hers as former Staff Sergeant Mackey lectured them on the best technique for getting over the first obstacle: in fact the last one they were being introduced to, since they'd walked the course backwards. It was a whacking great vertical wall.

"I'm never going to get over that thing, ma'am," Shaz whispered.

Alex suspected Shaz had a good point. The wall was a good ten feet high, and the only assistance to pull yourself up and over it was a stubby rope that hung from the top, and a tiny little toe-hold halfway up.

Mackey barked, "And here's the kicker, lads. Just like the start-times will be staggered according to age and gender, the ladies get a bit of an assist on this one. In the form of a lift. Just enough to get a hold of the rope, mind. So don't bother fluttering your eyelashes at me, girls. Rules are the rules."

A strapping bloke of six foot two or three, dressed in a tracksuit with a red stripe, scoffed his disgust and said, "Well that's not fair."

Alex looked at him, and then at Shaz, and considered the difference in their height and reach. "Yeah?" she said to him. "I don't think it's fair that the genetic lottery gave you better upper body strength than me. I'm still going to give it a go."

The strapping bloke glared at her. "It's not fair," he repeated, a bit louder, as if that reinforced his argument. "There should be a separate competition for female contestants. Can't just change the rules for them to make it easier. Pisses over everyone else."

Alex narrowed her eyes. "You think it's unfair because someone who's a foot shorter than you are gets a boost up to the rope?"

The strapping bloke shrugged. "Yeah. That's unfair. It's pandering. So's changing the start times. This is about physical fitness. Someone isn't as fit as me, they shouldn't get a head start. They should bloody come second, because that's the whole point."

Alex studied him a moment, then she rolled her eyes, pretending to understand. "Oh. Right. This is about fear, then."

Strapping-bloke frowned. "What?"

Alex glanced around, aware that the gathered group – former Staff Sergeant Mackey included – were watching the exchange with interest. She refused to let this make her feel uncomfortable. "You want to organise this bit of the contest so that no one who's weaker than you gets any help," she said. "Because you're afraid that someone who's weaker than you might actually beat you to the finish-line. By 'weaker' I mean – older, shorter, less male." She looked him up and down disdainfully. "Less riddled with steroids. This isn't about fairness. This is about the horrendous possibility that you might lose your heat...to a _girl_." She widened her eyes in mock horror. To one side Alex heard a snort that was unmistakably Hunt-esque.

The strapping bloke's glare intensified. He seemed to have no other response, besides a small mutter that might possibly have been the words 'fucking dyke'. Alex realised that she'd achieved one thing, if nothing else, today. She'd made one of her fellow competitors loathe her.

Mackey said, "All right, pipe down. That's it for the walk-through. Ten minute break, then you get to have a go. Alphabetical according to colour: blues, then greens, then reds, then yellows."

He stomped off, all square shoulders and military fatigues, in the direction of the building that housed the centre's facilities: changing rooms, showers, toilets, and a small communal canteen that was serving tea and coffee. Alex shared a look with Shaz, then they drifted away from the crowd to head over to Chris and the Guv.

"You're gonna do great, Shaz," Chris said. "Don't worry."

Shaz looked sceptical. "I don't want that horrible man putting his hands on me."

"I'm not keen on the idea myself," Alex agreed. "But I also don't want to look like an idiot, flailing at a rope I can't quite get a hold of."

Shaz sighed. "The rest of it, I think I can do. It's just this bloody wall."

"You can do it," Chris said. "I know you can. I'll ask Sergeant Mackey if I can be the one to give you a lift up. How'd that be?"

Shaz looked placated. "Oh, would you? That'd be tons better." She turned to Alex. "He could do you too."

Alex arched a brow at Gene. "Oh, I think the Guv's got him covered there."

Gene smirked and tossed his cigarillo butt away. "Any time you need me to grab a hold of your arse, Bols? Ready, willing and able."

She looked levelly at him. "Well, it'll certainly give me the motivation to scramble up that wall as fast as possible. Just try to remember to let go."

Shaz hid a giggle. Gene lit another cigarillo. Alex wondered just how abject this afternoon's humiliation was likely to be.

~~~

Mackey was indifferent to the request that others provide the female contestants with their 'hoist'. He merely clarified that on competition day it would be him, so that there was no question of cheating. Alex thought it'd be tricky to cheat when in the process of lifting a person a foot off the ground in full view of the gathered spectators, but since that kind of logic only ever tended to enrage the rule-makers she held her tongue.

Shaz's team – the blues – were first. Most of the other contestants hung back, probably in the hope that when it came to their turn they didn't have too much of an audience either. Alex stood to one side with Gene while Chris waited by the wall with Shaz. The first blue-team member – a man of thirty or so, not overly tall – took a run up and leapt using the same technique that had been demonstrated by Mackey earlier. He didn't make it look effortless, but he managed to scramble up and over, and he thudded down on the other side. Alex didn't like the wince he gave as he landed.

And it was Shaz's go. Chris gave her a reassuring smile. It really wasn't fair, Alex thought. Shaz had quite the height disadvantage on even the shortest male competitor.

"She's got some balls, I'll give her that," Gene muttered.

"Just wait for the mental agility round," Alex said back. "She'll outshine the lot of us."

"What, even you?"

She turned to him in surprise. "Are you complimenting me on my mental agility?"

"Just doing some team-building."

She nudged him with her shoulder. She was glad he was here. Even if he was about to cop a feel of her bum.

Chris positioned himself behind Shaz. He grasped her by the hips. On Mackey's instruction, Shaz jumped and Chris supported. She grabbed the rope and swung her legs up until she could plant one foot against the toe-hold and pull herself up the wall using the rope as leverage.

"She's going to make it," Alex said, smiling. Shaz's technique was perfect. What she lacked in strength she won back in the body-weight she had to haul upwards.

And Shaz did indeed – almost – make it. Only when she reached the top and the end of the rope, her technique faltered and her legs skidded from under her, and she was hanging from the top of the rope with her legs flailing for purchase.

"Bugger," Alex said. "Come on, Shaz. Come on."

Chris looked like he wanted to dart in and give her a shoulder to stand on. Mackey held him back with a stern arm. Shaz managed to find her toe-hold again, and she dragged herself up so that her arms reached over the top of the wall. In the end it was even less graceful than the first contestant's attempt, but with a heave of effort Shaz pushed herself up on her arms and slung a leg over the top of the wall.

She paused there for a moment and punched the air. She was laughing, breathless, exhilarated by her own accomplishment. Even Mackey looked secretly impressed. Chris whooped and cheered beneath her. Alex turned, smiling, to Gene, to see him with one hand clenched in a triumphant fist and a pleased smile somewhere underneath the scowl.

Mackey went around the wall to be on hand when Shaz dropped to the ground. As before, only in reverse, Shaz had further to go than the rest of them. She remembered her technique again, lowered herself to hang from the wall by the rope provided, and then let herself drop the two feet or so to the ground. She landed in a crouch, absorbing the impact as instructed, and stood straight on only slightly shaking legs.

Alex cheered and clapped. Shaz turned to her and raised her arms in victory. The first blue-team contestant, waiting to one side, looked kind of annoyed that nobody had cheered _his_ accomplishment.

"Guv," Alex said as the third contestant readied his attempt.

"Bols?"

"I don't think I'm going to be very good at this."

"You don't have to be. You just have to get it done. Shaz did it."

"I've got ten years on Shaz."

"There's blokes here, have got ten years on you. Trust me, Bols, you can do this. Think of it this way. Other side o' that wall? There's a scumbag bastard, and he's trying to get away. So he can do bad things to nice people. Um, old ladies. And vicars."

"Old ladies and vicars," Alex said dryly.

"Yeah. And it's up to you to chase him down. Doesn't matter how you get over that wall. You just get over it."

"If I do, are you going to cheer?" she asked.

He shot her a glance, and the hint of a smile was warming his scowl again. "If you do, I might just kiss you."

Alex rolled her eyes. "Thought you were supposed to be motivating me."

"Oh, I am, Bols. And if you complete the whole course? Might even slip you some tongue."

"You're disgusting," she said.

"You're just saying that." He gave her a smirk and moved off to follow the group on to the next obstacle.

~~~

Shaz had been quite right. The other major obstacles of the course weren't as imposing as that first wall. There was a narrow beam suspended over a shallow muddy puddle that had been swollen into a pool by the recent rain. The beam looked treacherous with the wet and the cold, but Shaz made it over with a lot more grace than her two fellow blue-team members. The second water obstacle was crossed using swing-ropes, which were a bit trickier, but Shaz timed her release well and landed on the dry. By the time they reached the worryingly high tower-platform which would see them hurtle down a zip-slide into another muddy puddle, Shaz had a whole lot less of this Dorking field on her tracksuit than her colleagues.

The tower was ascended by climbing a slanted, heavy-duty net. Shaz eyed it nervously. The main problem was purchase, Mackey had explained. The slackness of the net made it harder work than, say, a wooden frame. It also meant that by the time you neared the top – when you were most tired – you were all but climbing vertically.

When it came to Shaz's turn, she began slowly. Sensible enough, Alex thought; this was about familiarisation rather than competition. The first blue team guy had gone for it and suffered as a result. Testosterone did that to men.

Again, it was all in the technique. Shaz had listened well. She made progress upwards, never fewer than three steady hand-and-foot-holds in place. She'd managed to speed up a bit, finding a rhythm, by the time she neared the top. At that point she was over thirty feet in the air. On the platform at the top, Mackey waited with another staff member. They weren't interested in helping her over the last few feet.

Shaz wobbled precariously and one of her feet slipped out of its rope-support. Alex gasped. So did Chris. The Guv probably did the scowl-equivalent.

Shaz recovered and dragged herself on to the platform, where she gave herself a couple of seconds before getting to her feet. The platform was perhaps four or five feet wide, and ten feet long, and there were no safety railings to prevent someone with shaky legs pitching over the side. Perhaps that was why there were blokes stationed at the top.

Mackey helped Shaz place her hands through the loops of the zip-slide. Alex wondered what the view looked like from up there. She remembered going swimming as a kid, and always looking covetously at the two metre springboard that Evan had insisted she refrain from using until she was a bit bigger. She remembered her fourteenth birthday, when she'd started a growth spurt and Evan had finally conceded that she could try the springboard out. She remembered getting up there and walking out to the end of the diving board, and she remembered how two metres looked a hell of a lot different from up there than from below.

"Oh god," she muttered.

Shaz leapt from the platform and whizzed down the line. It seemed she had no problem with heights. A few seconds later the slide slowed as Shaz neared the landing site.

"Lift your legs, girl," Gene growled beside her. "Lift up. You'll–"

Shaz's legs trailed through water and she crashed to a full-body landing in the shallows. She rolled free, pulling her arms from the slide, and she tried to stagger to her feet. The amount of cold water and mud on her tracksuit made this difficult.

Chris raced over to help. Gene sighed. "Told you," he said to Alex.

"If I do that, you're not going to rush over and help me, are you?" she predicted.

"Course not. It'd be cheating. You know how I feel about fair-play." He gave a dry sniff. "Anyway. I like this suit. And I hate the bloke at the dry-cleaners." They moved off to join Chris and Shaz.

Shaz was looking both exhilarated and mournful at the same time. She appeared to be unsteady on her legs. Her hair was plastered to her head and there was mud pretty much everywhere. And there was still an obstacle to go, so she couldn't even head off to the shower.

"Made a mess of that, didn't I?" she said as they all grouped together to watch the final blue-team member attempt the tower.

"Next time," Gene admonished her, "lift your bloody legs, you dozy–"

"Guv," Alex said.

Gene coughed. "Next time lift your legs, Granger."

Shaz shot her a look, then smiled a small smile. "I'll try, Guv. I tried this time. Only they were all wobbly after the climb."

Alex said, "Shit. Hadn't thought of that."

The last blue-team guy annoyed the hell out of all four of them by making a near-perfect landing. He scrunched his legs up to his chest for the last few feet of the slide, and avoided most of the water and a lot of the mud. Alex noted the technique, even if she was likely to find she was incapable of replicating it.

Mackey came down from the platform via a ladder on one end and went to join them. He shot Shaz a look that appeared to be almost paternal concern. "Granger?" he said. "You all right?"

"Just a bit wet and cold," she assured him. Indeed, she was shivering quite hard. Chris stepped closer to her side, attempting to show Mackey that there was only one man present who had the right to concern himself with Shaz's well-being, but Mackey was already moving them on to the last obstacle.

"Didn't look like much when we started the walk-through earlier, eh?" Mackey said. He was right; it hadn't. Just another load of rope-netting, this time laid out on the muddy ground, under which the contestants had to crawl. "Thing is, by this time your muscles will be screaming, and you'll be water-logged and muddy, and your hearts'll feel ready to burst in your chest. Best I can suggest is that you focus on technique. Remember the crawling demo young Simon gave you."

Alex remembered. The guy had crawled like a soldier moving through long grass. It had looked vaguely obscene, the way his arse had wiggled from side to side.

They waited for Shaz's turn, then she made her attempt. At least she'd had a few minutes of recovery time. She ducked under the netting and began to crawl. Again, she was all about the technique, and for that reason she made much shorter work of the obstacle than the first guy had done. Chris cheered along with Alex when Shaz emerged from the netting and found her feet once again. The Guv indulged in some firm hand-claps.

"Right then," Mackey said when the third and final blue-team guy had finished. "Good work, you lot. You'll be fine. Granger – excellent technique. You should've been a soldier."

"No thank you," Shaz muttered, but she smiled with pleasure at the compliment.

Mackey and his minions began the walk back along the course to pick up the three green-team members who'd now be waiting at the wall. Alex looked at poor, knackered, bedraggled Shaz. "Come on, Shazza," she said. "Let's get you to the showers."

~~~

The wall was big. No wonder Shaz had balked. The closer you got to its foot, the more height it seemed to sprout. It didn't help that the first red-team member to undertake it was Mr Strapping – the guy who'd questioned the fairness of women getting a helping hand up – and he managed to climb up, roll over and drop down within the space of about five seconds without even breaking a sweat.

"I really hate that guy," she muttered to Gene, as he waited with her while the second red-team member made his attempt.

"Let's hope he's shit at general knowledge," Gene muttered back.

The second red-team member was an older man, maybe mid-forties, but wiry and fit with it. He looked like a walker: like the kind of man whose idea of a pleasant holiday was undertaking twenty-mile hikes through the Lake District. Weathered and spare of frame. He didn't get over the wall with as much ease as Mr Strapping, but he managed just fine.

"I can't believe I said I'd do this," Alex mused out loud.

"Oy," Gene said. She turned to him. "Drake. Arse in gear. Scumbag to catch, remember?"

She remembered. "Old ladies and vicars."

"You can do this. You're strong. You punch like McGuigan. I should know."

"Are you giving me a pep-talk?" she asked, and suddenly she was more amused than nervous.

"Tell anyone and I'll deny all knowledge," he said.

She gave a short laugh and nudged his arm with hers. She was definitely glad he was here.

They moved into place at the foot of the wall. By now the ground beneath it was churned with mud from the traffic of the other contestants. Alex frowned. Her trainers would be slippery once she found her hold on the rope, and that would not help with the toe-hold part.

Gene saw her frown at her footwear. He leaned in and said, "Wipe 'em on the legs of your tracksuit before you plant your feet on the wall."

It was a good idea. She nodded.

Mackey said, "Right, Drake. You're up."

She gave Gene one last resigned look, but the fierce determination in his eyes somehow spurred her on. She turned away from him and faced the wall, and his hands grasped her hips. Then she jumped, and he lifted and held her, and her hands found the rope that dangled a couple of feet down the wall.

Gene's hands left her body and she hung there. She cleared her mind of all but the task in hand, and took a moment to wipe the soles of her trainers. Then she used her as-yet unsapped strength to curl her legs up and find purchase against the toe-hold. She pushed up, straightening her legs, and it looked like this was actually going to work.

Methodical. That was the best approach. Hand over hand she went, until she neared the top of the rope. Some few feet away she heard Shaz – now dry and changed – cheering her on with Chris. Her arms were beginning to strain as she managed to grab a hold of the top of the wall. She had more body-weight than Shaz to haul up, and her muscles weren't used to this kind of exercise.

The pain was going to be a distraction. She set it aside and focused her thoughts. On the other side of this wall was a bad man with nefarious intentions. She imagined Layton, racing away, trying to hunt down Molly. It was as bad a scenario as she could come up with. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose, and then she felt the surge of adrenaline take hold, and she heaved herself up and straightened her arms.

And seconds later when she found herself rolling over the top of the wall without pausing, like Shaz had done, to lower herself on the other side, she'd managed to surprise herself. Turned out the Guv had been right. It was all in the motivation.

She turned to Chris and Shaz, who were cheering like maniacs, and she waved at them. Mackey appeared beside her and arched a brow. "Not bad, Drake." Mr Strapping looked unimpressed, but Mr Hill-Walker came over and patted her on the shoulder.

"Great job," he said. "I'm Clive, by the way."

"Alex," she offered, and they shook hands. "Thanks."

She looked around. Gene stood off to one side, close to Chris and Shaz, and he looked approving as he stuck his chin out in his habitual pout. He nodded at her. She nodded back.

She was pretty sure she'd been promised a kiss, and didn't think about how disappointed she was that it had turned out to be just talk.

~~~

After an unexpectedly competent start, things went downhill. Alex told herself that the problem was the mud and the wet, but she knew – deep inside – that her problem was overconfidence. The one obstacle she thought she'd have a problem with had proved to be surmountable. She'd let this go to her head and hadn't taken appropriate care.

The mud and the wet were problems too, of course. Across a shallow pool around four inches deep and filled with bone-achingly cold water, the narrow wooden beam had been smeared and splashed for the hour preceding her attempt to cross. Alex remembered Shaz skipping gracefully over the obstacle, and she kidded herself that women had better balance in such things than men. She felt no qualm as she took her first few steps. Mr Strapping – who hadn't introduced himself like Clive – was seething on the other side, since he'd slipped at the last minute and ended up on his arse in the mud, just beyond the water. When her foot slipped out from under her mid-beam, and she found herself flailing for non-existent purchase in mid-air, she could only hope that Mr Strapping wasn't sniggering.

The water hit her like rock, and she found out just how cold 'bone-achingly' could be. The pool wasn't deep enough to absorb the impact of her fall, and she was pretty sure she grazed her elbow and her hip in the process. Still, she was nothing if not determined. So she stood up, stalked out of the water with as much dignity as she could muster – which wasn't much – and retook her position at the beginning of the obstacle.

It was a relief that no one was laughing when she stopped hearing the rush of blood through her ears.

Mackey said, "Drake? Still good to go?"

"I'm fine."

"Twice as hard when you're wet," he reminded her.

She turned to give him the steeliest look she could muster. "Thank you, Mr Mackey, I'm familiar with the laws of physics."

Mackey held up his hands in surrender and backed off. Beyond the small cocoon that she was allowing herself to be aware of in the interests of limiting the humiliation factor came a Shaz-shout of, "You can do it, ma'am!"

Of course she could do it. It was a bloody wooden beam. It wasn't rocket science. She sniffed and made her second attempt, this time with greater caution. In almost exactly the same place on the beam her foot threatened to slip once again, but she was ready this time and shifted her weight. She corrected, passed the danger point, and moments later jumped down from the end to the semi-firmness of dry land.

"Well done," Mackey said. "Right – next apparatus!"

He marched off. Mr Strapping followed. Clive came up to her, brow creased in concern. "That was quite a tumble," he told her, as if she needed advising of this. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," she told him. "Just a bit more wet and a lot more pissed off than I was before."

Clive nodded and wandered away. Alex sighed and looked around, to see her CID colleagues all approaching. Shaz looked wild-eyed with concern.

"Ma'am," Shaz said, "you should take a break. Check yourself over. You must've hurt yourself with that landing."

"Only my pride," she told Shaz, and though it was a lie, Shaz looked mollified. Alex couldn't quite meet Gene's eyes as she stomped off after Mackey. For some reason, her humiliation was all the more abject with his presence.

Of course, the problem with taking a dunking like that was it made the rest of the obstacles twice as difficult. Her team-mates made short work of a dance through some laid-out tyres that had looked like nothing earlier, but Alex felt clumsy and sodden as she tried to skip through them. She managed not to fall over, but only just, because her toe caught in the edge of one of them and required her to slow right down.

Then came the rope-swing. Again, her fellow red-teamers managed it without a problem. Alex eyed the pool of water underneath with distaste. She had a horrible feeling about this. Her hands were feeling raw and yet numb, both at the same time, and she was dragging around what felt like twice her own weight in muddy water. Still, she gripped the rope, swung out, judged that she wasn't going to make dry land on the other side with the first swing and so clung on – back and forth, using her knees as leverage to accentuate the swing – and she made it, jumping to land in a crouch that threatened to make her knees crack.

She was, she had to acknowledge, not as young as she used to be.

And then came the climb up the tower. By this time she was feeling fatigued, and this wasn't even the real contest. She was getting minutes worth of rest between obstacles. How the hell was she going to do this on the actual day, against the clock?

While she stood, shivering, and watched Mr Strapping haul himself up the rope-net, she sensed a presence at her shoulder. Gene had come to stand close. She glanced his way, and he looked at her for a moment and then reached for her hands. They were red and chafed by the rope she'd just been clinging to. He frowned at this, then he took his gloves off and encased her hands between his own, and he started to rub some feeling back into them.

"I s'pose this is why they give you chance to practice," he said.

"I know. I made an arse of myself. I'm sorry."

"Shut up. Daft bloody bint."

She lifted her chin, annoyed that she was going to have to remind him about his promise of respectful support again. Only she didn't bother when she saw the approving smirk in his expression. He was winding her up deliberately.

The feeling was returning to her hands. Alex drew a few deep breaths. She looked at the netting, where Mr Strapping was hanging by one hand and one foot, flailing for something else to grasp and looking like he was in trouble. In his nice semi-dry tracksuit, with no injuries to his arms or hips...

"How the hell am I going to do this?" she wondered out loud.

"Same way you got over that wall," Gene told her. "Sheer force of will. I never knew any woman as stubborn as you are."

Alex managed a small smile. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Gene shook his head, leaned in, and he murmured, "I like stubborn women."

She narrowed her eyes, not sure how to respond to that, and settled for, "I hurt my elbow."

"I'll kiss it better later."

"And my hip."

"I'll _definitely_ kiss that better."

Alex snorted. "In your dreams."

"A man can hope, Bols."

She rolled her eyes and looked away. Mr Strapping, having made it to the top of the tower, was standing on the platform and seemed to be watching the two of them. Maybe he was thinking that it was bloody unfair that a female competitor was getting her hands rubbed back into warmth during a practice run; Alex wouldn't have put the thought past him. Mackey said something to him and he turned around to prepare to make his sliding descent. Clive went to take up a position to begin his climb. Alex sighed.

"Hands any better?" Gene asked.

"Yes and no. I can feel them now, which will make climbing easier. But I can feel them now. And they're bloody sore."

"You're just a complaining machine, aren't you?"

She glared. "I'd like to see you give this a try!"

"I'm not that daft."

He was doing it again. Winding her up. And it was working. The fire was coming back into her belly.

"Poxy little climbing-frame," she said, sneering at the tower. Clive was climbing now, slow and steady. She examined his technique. It was good. "I've seen more intimidating fairground rides."

"Don't forget your landing."

"I won't. Whether my legs obey my brain is another thing, but rest assured, I'll be _thinking_ 'legs up' at the right point." She looked down at their joined hands. The rubbing had slowed to what felt suspiciously like a caress. "I, er, think you can let go of me now."

"Do I have to?"

There was a glint in his eye. She felt a brief thrill and put it down to the adrenaline. Shaz appeared beside them; she looked with interest at the hand-holding, but Gene had quickened his caresses into a brisk rub again.

"You'll be pleased to hear," Shaz said, "that the tall bloke? Landed face first in the puddle. Honestly, his landing was worse than mine."

Alex grinned. "Good."

Clive had reached the top of the platform. Mackey called down to her from there:

"Drake! Stop canoodling with your fella and get your arse in gear!"

She drew breath to deny the accusation, but Mackey had already turned away to sort out Clive's grip on the zip-slide. She gave a sigh, glanced at Gene long enough to see his amusement, and decided that the only possible thing to do was let her annoyance fuel her determination.

~~~

Alex's muscles were threatening to become jelly by the time she heaved herself over the edge of the platform. Every inch in height she'd gained on the way up had seemed to come with a disproportionate amount of effort. She lay there for a moment on her back, breathing hard. Mackey's face came into view against the grey-washed sky. He peered down at her.

"Good job," he told her. "For someone who's carrying at least two injuries."

"Just grazes," she said between gasps.

"Something or nothing," he agreed. "Up and at 'em, soldier."

"I'm not a bloody soldier, and I'll get up when I'm ready."

Mackey hid a smile. "My apologies, madam. Next time I'll make sure there's a pillow with a little After Eight mint on it for you."

"Piss off."

This time he couldn't hide the smile. Or a chuckle. "Ohh, god, Drake, I hope you win your heat."

"Why?"

"Because I'm one of the few people here who understands how much harder this course is when you take an early tumble. And you're in danger of impressing the hell out of me."

Alex grunted acknowledgement and rolled to her side, so she could push up to her knees. Her legs felt wobbly, but she made herself stand and stretch. The feeling began to return.

"Ready?" Mackey asked. She nodded. He guided her hands through the loops of the slide mechanism. Alex looked down for the first time, and realised how high up she was.

"Christ," she muttered.

"You've done the hard bit," Mackey said. "Don't look at the ground. Look at your hands. Look at the wire. See the end. How're your legs?"

"I seem to be standing."

"Good for you. This is the fun part. Off you go."

He stood back. Alex swallowed. In the distance, close to the muddy mire in which she'd touch down, Gene stood with Chris and Shaz.

"It's all in the landing," she told herself, and she took a deep breath and launched herself off the edge of the platform.

Turned out Mackey was right. The sudden freedom was exhilarating, and Alex heard herself whoop. She wondered if anyone else had done that. She couldn't remember hearing it. Then she realised that the ground was getting closer with disarming speed. She narrowed her eyes and told her legs to curl up. It took every ounce of strength she could summon, since it felt like there were lead weights attached to each of her feet, but they obeyed. The slide slowed, and she skimmed the surface of the water with her tiptoes but managed to roll free of the slide on to mud that was relatively un-sodden. She rolled again and pushed up to her knees and her feet, and she staggered clear.

Chris and Shaz were jumping and cheering. Clive was joining in with them by this point. Mr Strapping looked thoroughly disgusted, as if he'd been counting on her screwing this part up.

Gene came over to take her elbow and offer some support as she swayed. "Know something, Bols?" he asked, leaning close to her ear. "I think I just got a stiffy."

"Oh shut up," she said, but she was smiling with it.

~~~

It took some help from Shaz before Alex was able to peel the sodden tracksuit top from her body. Fortunately there was only one other woman taking part in the current exercise, and she was out braving the obstacles herself as part of the yellow team. So they had some privacy.

Alex lifted her left arm to examine the spot that hurt, while Shaz took the top over to the communal bin where they'd been instructed to leave their garments. The graze over her elbow was more severe than the numbing cold – and all the other aches and pains – had let her think. Her arm was a mess of congealing blood, mud and little black fibres from the tracksuit.

"Oh, ma'am!" Shaz said in concern when she caught sight of the injury. "That needs cleaning."

"Every inch of me needs cleaning, Shaz," Alex pointed out. "I'll get the worst off in the shower. We'll break out the first-aid kit when we get back."

Shaz shook her head. "They should have stuff here. I'll fetch it while you're in the shower."

Alex nodded weary agreement. "Okay." She looked down at her stockinged, muddied feet. "I'm going to need to buy another pair of trainers. I should put them on bloody expenses."

"Don't see why not," Shaz said. "I'd say it's the least CID's petty cash can do."

Alex pushed her caked tracksuit bottoms down her thighs. "Okay," she said as she did so, "give it to me straight. How much of a moron did I look when I fell off that beam?"

Shaz frowned. "Not any kind of moron. You slipped on a muddy patch. Everyone saw how it happened." She crouched down as Alex reached the limit of her sore arms, and continued to work the tracksuit bottoms down Alex's legs. "No one laughed, you know. A few people winced, like they were feeling it for you." Shaz looked up at her. "I think if anyone'd laughed, the Guv would've punched them."

Alex sat down as the trousers puddled around her feet, and she let Shaz pull them free. She turned to her left side and studied her hip and thigh. There was no graze, though she suspected that within a few hours' time there'd be a colourful and impressive bit of bruising there.

"Ugh. Hell of a way to spend a Monday afternoon," she said with a sigh.

"Oh, I dunno, ma'am. Sounded like you were having fun for a while back there. On the slide?"

"I got carried away," Alex confessed.

"You landed better than Clive or Josh."

"Josh?"

"The tall bloke. He introduced himself."

"Oh."

"Tried to flirt with me, too," Shaz said. "Asking me all sorts about where we work, what we do. Right when Chris was standing there. Honestly. Some blokes, eh?"

"Some blokes," Alex agreed. She lifted her damp but not-too-muddied T-shirt over her head and winced at the ragged muscles in her arms. "Still, we did it, Shaz."

"We did." Shaz grinned at her. "Didn't know I had it in me."

"There were moments I doubted myself." Alex leaned back against the wall of the changing room and sighed. "Mackey isn't as bad as we thought he was."

"No, he's all right. And Clive's sweet."

"Hmm."

"You need a hand with anything else?"

Alex smiled and shook her head. "No, Shaz. Thanks. I'll probably make it to the shower without falling over now."

Shaz left the changing room in search of a first-aid box. Alex managed to stand up – though she gave the kind of groan she usually associated with middle-age in order to do so – and she finished undressing. She wrapped a towel around her chest, grabbed the toiletries she'd brought with her, and padded over to the shower cubicles. She left the towel on the rail provided and sequestered herself behind the curtain.

The hot water felt magnificent. Alex let it sluice over her for a few minutes, just leaning against the tiled wall and watching the mud cascade from her hair and body until the water ran clean down the plughole. Then she washed as thoroughly as her aching muscles would allow. The graze on her arm stung like crazy as she let the water pressure hit it directly, but making sure it was clean was more important. It struck her as somehow ironic that in another world she was lying in a filthy river barge with a bullet in her head, and here she was making such a fuss about a small abrasion like this.

Getting clean lifted some of the weariness. She shut off the water and squeezed the excess out of her hair. Then she reached for the curtain.

"Just for the record, Bols," the Guv's voice said, "you're not currently alone in here."

Alex's eyes widened, then she pulled the topmost part of the curtain aside, using the rest of it to cover her body. "This is the ladies' changing room!"

"Didn't think you bothered about that kind o' thing," he said. He was sitting on the bench near where her jacket hung from one of the hooks above, legs stretched out before him as if he was completely at home. "I mean, number of times you've gone marching into the Gents at Fenchurch?"

"What are you bloody doing in here?"

"Waiting to administer first-aid to an injured fellow officer," he told her flatly. He glanced to one side. Next to him on the bench sat a white plastic box marked with a red cross. Shaz had procured the supplies. At that point – no doubt – Gene had pulled rank.

"Your concern is very sweet," Alex said with scepticism, "but you don't get to see me naked that easily. If you could send Shaz in when you leave?"

"Oh, don't be such a prude," he taunted her. He closed his eyes. "Not peeking. See?"

Alex rolled her eyes and decided that if he was going to be inappropriate than she'd damn well match him. "Fine," she said. "Come over here and pass me my towel."

"My eyes are closed."

"Then open them."

Gene did so, smirked, and he stood up and wandered over. He reached for her waiting towel and held it out to her. She grabbed it through a gap in the curtain and turned away to wrap it around her body. Then she turned back and whisked the curtain aside. Gene was standing exactly where she'd left him.

He took a moment to admire the vision she presented, bruised and battered though she felt, then he offered her his hand. She took it and stepped out of the shower cubicle.

"Show me your arm," he said.

She tut-tutted, but she bent her arm and presented the back of her elbow. Gene winced.

"Looks nasty," he conceded. "You did that when you fell?"

"Yup."

"And then you did all the rest of the course."

"Yup."

"You're a determined pair o' stockings, aren't you?" In the depths of his glare, Alex sensed something like pride, and it warmed her.

"There was someone I couldn't let down," she said. "Help me over to the bench; my legs aren't working very well."

Gene wrapped an arm around her back, still holding on to her hand, and guided her over to the changing room bench. Alex turned and sat down gratefully. Gene went to collect another towel from the pile provided. He unfolded it and draped it over her head, and began to rub the water from her hair. Alex was grateful that she didn't need to lift her own arms to do this, so she just let him.

"I'm going to be in agony tomorrow," she said, voice muffled by the towel. "Thank god I've got a few days before I need to do this whole thing again."

"If you win your heat, you'll have to do it another time in the play-offs. And if you win that, you'll need to do it all over again in the finals."

Alex groaned. "God. I really didn't think this through, did I?"

"Maybe not." He stopped rubbing her hair and stepped back to let her wrap the towel around her head. "But you haven't let anyone down yet." He went to sit beside her on her left hand side, and pulled her injured arm towards himself. Then he grabbed a sachet containing an antiseptic wipe from the first-aid box. "This is going to hurt."

"Everything hurts."

"Oh, stop your complaining, woman."

When she shot him daggers, he just gave her an unimpressed look. Alex let her head fall back, and she allowed Gene to take care of her damaged arm.

~~~

They all got back to the office at around four o'clock, and of course the rest of CID were waiting to hear how their two 'flimsy tarts' had got on. Chris did most of the telling, but the Guv stayed in the outer office and embellished the account with the odd quip. When Chris got to the part about Alex slipping off the wooden beam and into a pool of muddy water, Ray gave a snort. The Guv smacked him across the back of the head.

Once the recount was done, Hunt said, "Right, lads. Assuming there's no case that breaks in the coming few days, here's the spec. Shaz competes in Dorking, day after tomorrow. DI Drake on Friday. Gordo, Thad – you're staying here to man the fort on Wednesday. Terry, Bammo – Friday. Everyone else gets their arse to Dorking, and what are you going to do?"

"Cheer like bastards, Guv," the male officers chorused.

"Good men. Granger, Drake – early dart for you today. Get yourselves off home."

Alex wondered about protesting that this was unnecessary, but the way everything ached forestalled her. She and Shaz collected their coats and made their way out of the office.

Back at her flat, Alex ran herself a hot bath and soaked for almost an hour, in the hope of helping her muscle-recovery along. Her left arm stayed out of the water, since re-dressing the injury would prove difficult on her own. But she felt more human afterwards.

She ate a light evening meal and drank plenty of water, and wondered about going downstairs to join her colleagues for their habitual evening drinking session when the clock ticked past seven. In the end she decided not to. The alcohol wouldn't help with her body's recovery, and she didn't want to move that far in any case. So she got comfortable on the sofa and flicked between the television channels. She dozed, on and off. It _had_ been an exhausting afternoon.

Alex was stirred back into wakefulness mid-doze by a familiar pounding on the door to her flat. She growled her irritation, but still clambered to her feet and made her way gingerly through the kitchen. It was, at that point, almost ten in the evening.

"Bolly," Gene said, when she opened the door. "Thought I should check in. Case you need your arm seeing to again."

She frowned and lifted it up to inspect it. The steam from her bath, along with the occasional unavoidable splash, had curled the tape Gene had used to fix the dressing in place. More than that, she couldn't see without the use of a mirror.

He stepped inside and took her arm in his hands, and he scrutinised the dressing. "It needs seeing to," he decided. There was the hint of beer on his breath, but he wasn't unsteady on his feet.

Alex opened the kitchen cupboard which held the flat's first-aid box, but Gene reached past her to take it down from its shelf. They went through to the living room and sat down on the sofa.

"You know," she said, "you really didn't have to get the whole office to come out to Dorking to watch me and Shaz humiliate ourselves."

"Yeah, I did," he replied, as he unpeeled the dressing from her arm. "Scarman's going to be there. I want him to see one big happy Fenchurch East family."

"Oh. Right."

"You did me proud today, Bols. You and Shaz."

"Unfortunately today didn't count for anything."

He glanced up at her. "Maybe it did for me."

Alex glared at him. "All right, what's brought this on? You're never this nice to me. Or, you know, to anyone."

"What can I say? I had a grope of your arse. I saw you in a towel. I'm in a good mood."

"You're certainly in a better mood now than you've been for the last few weeks."

"Maybe you should let me grope your arse more often."

"Not even for the sake of a more congenial atmosphere at work." She met the disapproval in his eyes with an arched eyebrow. "Anyway, former Staff Sergeant Mackey gets that honour on Friday."

"Yeah, I'll be watching him."

"I think he likes me. He said he hopes I win my heat."

"Trying to make me jealous, Lady-B?" he asked, as he used a wipe to clean the injury again.

Alex winced as the antiseptic stung her, and considered that winding up the man who is currently attending to your injury was not the most sensible of strategies. So she shrugged. "Can't imagine why you'd think that."

"Well, you do like to flatter yourself," he said.

She smiled to herself. "It's working, then."

Gene leaned nearer and said, low of voice, "In your dreams."

"Oh, I've got much better plans for them," she said back.

They hesitated for a moment, looking at each other, then Gene turned away to discard the wipe. "One of these days," he told her as he collected a fresh dressing to apply, "you're going to say something like that, and I'm not going to back off."

She nodded thoughtfully. "That day certainly seems to be getting closer."

"Mmm. And, er, what then?"

"Maybe _I'll_ back off," she said. "Or maybe I won't. Who knows? We'll have to wait and see."

They were quiet for a few minutes after that, as Gene saw to her arm. Alex supposed that they had reached a bit of a milestone. Flirtation followed by retreat: that was the norm for them. But this was the first time they'd openly acknowledged that this was what they were in the process of doing.

"Right," Gene said when he'd put the first-aid box away. "Where's your Scotch?"

She rolled her eyes. He knew full well where the booze was kept in this flat. "You're staying for a drink?"

"Course I am. I've played enough footie in my time to know how it goes. You need a massage. And that means you're going to moan like a nymphet. So I'm going to need a drink."

Alex considered backing off. Then she considered what it would be like to have warm, strong hands easing away the aches in her muscles.

"You know where the Scotch is," she said, though it felt a bit like defeat. "Help yourself."

~~~

Of course, Gene was right. The masculine ear could not distinguish between the sounds of pleasure from a good massage, and more earthy pleasure-sounds. Which was all well and good, except that Alex couldn't help but notice that her own body was also struggling to distinguish the pleasure of a decent back-and-shoulder-rub from other pleasures.

"God, that's good," she murmured into the cushion supporting her head, as Gene found the sweet spot just above the small of her back. "Right there. Mmm."

Behind her came the sound of a short masculine sigh: perhaps of frustration. She frowned.

"Sorry," she offered.

"No need," he said, working the kinks out of her spine with the heel of his hand. "Just bear in mind that I might be late in tomorrow morning. And my right arm might be very, very tired."

"Charming."

"That's me, all right."

He worked at her back until the moans became contented sighs, then he moved on.

"Arse aching at all, Bols?" he asked. Which, considering the source, was quite the gallant approach, since she'd expected him to just keep heading south.

"Let's keep some things in reserve," she suggested.

He grunted accedence and shifted on the sofa behind her until he could reach her calves. "Here?"

"Ow. Yes. Oh, very sore."

"I'll be gentle."

She gave a muffled laugh. "Who are you, and what have you done with Gene Hunt?"

"Funny." But whoever he was on this increasingly tension-packed night, he was indeed gentle as he began to work on her legs. She tried to curtail her moans, even when the pleasure-pain barrier was nudged. Alex concentrated on her breathing.

The sensitivity in her sore muscles was relaxing. His hands swept up and down, squeezing just enough. On an up-stroke his fingers caught the inside of her knees, and she gasped. For some reason that she'd never been able to fathom, she had quite the erogenous zone there. Gene didn't seem to notice and kept working. His fingers nudged again, and this time her libido leapt to attention.

"Ohh, god," she groaned. Her hips lifted and squirmed. Gene stopped.

"That, er, wasn't a massage noise, was it?" he said.

Alex swallowed. "Of course it was. What else would it be?"

"Mm-hmm," he agreed, the sound filled with amused doubt. He reached to tickle inside her knees, and even through the material of her leggings the sensation was delicious. Alex moaned and undulated again. "God," she gasped.

"You like that," he said, just a little bit smug. He kept tickling.

"Swear to god, Gene, you're going to have to stop that before I do something I'm likely to regret in the morning."

He hesitated, then he stopped. "Right." He left her knees alone and got to work on the back of her thighs. Alas, at this point her body could only tell her that he was getting closer, closer, closer, and the very idea was too much to handle. She flinched away from him and rolled clear. Then she lifted her head to look at him.

Gene arched a brow. "Did I hurt you?"

Not even close. But these were dangerous waters, and Alex wasn't sure she was willing to navigate them. So she lied. "I'm a bit bruised. On the top of my legs. And my hip. Where I landed."

He nodded. "Feet, then? Or are you ticklish?"

Alex considered the visceral pleasure of a foot-rub. She considered the noises she'd make, the squirming she'd do. She considered that she was already halfway to 'aroused'.

"I'm ticklish," she replied.

Gene nodded again. "Liar," he said. But he didn't sound annoyed. He stood up and, half-turned away from her, spent a moment adjusting himself. Then he reached for his Scotch on the table and drained the tumbler. "I was trying to help," he said when he'd set it down again.

"I know. You did."

"Right then. Well. I'll, er, see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow."

He moved to collect his overcoat and, before he disappeared around the corner into the kitchen, he met her eyes one final time. "Blimey, Bols."

"I can't argue with that," she agreed.

Gene left the flat, and the door shut quietly behind him. Alex collapsed on her back, tossed an arm over her eyes to block out the light, and she growled her frustrated confusion into the quiet of the evening.

~~~


	2. Chapter 2

As luck would have it, Shaz's heat had drawn her against a contestant they'd already met: Josh Harris, a uniform sergeant out of Hanfield and their equivalent of Viv. Which meant that Shaz's first competitive round saw her pitting her physical prowess against a strapping twenty-seven year old of six foot three, with arms like tree trunks.

All the physical fitness rounds were to be held this week, scheduled Wednesday through to Saturday. The conference hall rounds would be held next week. Alex couldn't really look that far ahead, however, since first she would have to take on the assault course again.

The Wednesday was dry, at least. When they all made their way to Dorking once again – Chris and Shaz in the back seat of the Quattro, much to Ray's disgust – they were leading a convoy of three cars.

At the outdoor pursuits centre a line of posts strung with nylon rope now marked the barrier beyond which spectators could not venture. While most of the CID lot went to find a good position to watch the heats begin, Alex stuck with Shaz in the main building. She noticed that the two other women getting ready – competing in different heats to Shaz that day – had also contrived to bring along some support. They all passed the nervous waiting time in the changing room exchanging stories of how their mostly-male colleagues were reacting to their part in the competition.

Shaz was competing in the first heat. And since she was the only female contestant of the four, she was therefore the very first person to undertake the course that day, given the staggered start-times. As Alex walked with her to the course starting-line, she observed that this was an advantage. Shaz would have much less in the way of mud and splash to deal with. Shaz tried to be upbeat about this, but the onus of being the first in line and therefore the competitor everyone most keenly watched was taking its toll.

And then Shaz was on her own, and Alex had to hang back to rejoin her CID colleagues. Chris looked twice as nervous as Shaz. Even Ray looked like he was sympathising; this was quite a remarkable thing, Alex thought, given the number of tantrums Ray had thrown in the last week upon realising that he was expected to make his own tea. The Guv's jaw was set and he wasn't meeting anyone's eyes, least of all hers. He hadn't been doing that for a couple of days, though: ever since their attempt at a massage. The evening she was beginning to think of as quite the wrong turn.

Lord Scarman, indulging in a predictable display of self-importance, opened the competition with a speech that went on far too long. All the while the first four contestants waited in their tracksuits in the cold January air, trying to stretch and ready themselves. Josh Harris, wearing the red stripe, looked like a giant next to Shaz. He'd be last to set off, as the youngest of the three male competitors. He didn't look happy about this; he had, of course, already established that he thought it was unfair.

Scarman finally finished pontificating, and the starter's pistol was imminent. Mackey, standing with the contestants, had a quick word with Shaz: something that made her manage a smile. Then Mackey walked the short distance to the foot of the wall.

Chris yelled, "Go on, Shazza!" The rest of the band cheered raggedly. Shaz managed a half-hearted wave at them all, and then struck up an 'on your marks' pose on the start-line.

Bang. Shaz was off. All around Alex there were digital-watch beeps as the various CID officers set their stopwatches going: something that seemed rather unnecessary since the race officials were taking care of the timing.

Shaz jogged to the wall and raised her arms so Mackey could grab a hold of her to lift her up. He did so smoothly, and Shaz grabbed for the rope. She scrambled up the wall just as she'd done in practice, only this time she was ready for the awkward top part and adjusted her body's position so that she could reach over the top without losing purchase with her toes against the side. She strained up, tried to get a leg over, faltered, recovered, and then managed to roll over the top without losing too much time.

Everyone cheered. Shaz dropped to the ground on the other side, only this time her landing wasn't as perfect as the one she'd managed two days earlier. She lost balance, and needed to stretch out an arm to steady herself against the ground. As she did so, Alex saw her give a wince of pain.

"Shit," she muttered. "That could be a sprain."

"Keep going, Shaz!" Chris called. Not that he needed to. Shaz had found her feet again and was jogging her way to the beam. Alex narrowed her eyes at the swift rub Shaz gave her wrist as she did so.

The beam was all but dry at this time of the day. Shaz crossed with no problems, landing in the dry, and moved on. There was a wood-built hurdle, about four foot off the ground, that Shaz chose to roll over rather than vault. Then came the tyres. She was small, sure-footed and determined enough that they weren't a problem, and she was all but free of this obstacle when the next start-signal came and the second contestant set off.

Alex and her colleagues were moving along the cordon to keep up with Shaz. Their cheers now competed with the group supporting the second competitor. This in itself seemed to fortify Fenchurch East's competitive spirit, and their cheering grew louder.

Shaz reached the rope swing, clung on tight and swung with all her might. She was favouring her non-injured arm, Alex noticed, which was likely to be a problem when it came to the tower-climb and the zip-slide. Still, Shaz made it across with a bit of a futzed landing that didn't see her splash into the water, at least. She struggled to her feet and moved on. Alex cheered her along with the boys.

Another starters pistol, and Shaz reached another hurdle. She rolled over it again, but this time her legs buckled as she landed and she lost time getting to her feet. Alex grimaced in sympathy. At this point the fatigue was starting to tell.

And the final pistol, only five seconds or so after the last. Josh Harris was now on the course, and racing to catch up. With his arms like bloody tree trunks and his utter determination not to suffer the humiliation of defeat to a woman.

Shaz jogged to the foot of the tower. Would she manage it? Alex tried to send her some strength through mind-power alone, and reminded Shaz silently to rely on her technique. Behind her there came a groan: it seemed that the second competitor to set off had managed to catch his foot in the tyres and fall flat on his face. Good. He'd have to go back to the beginning of the obstacle and start again.

Shaz began to make slow progress up the netting of the tower. Mackey was now standing on the top platform, looking down at her. Then he looked over at the spectators; Alex thought he was looking for her. She held up her right wrist and grasped it, hoping Mackey got the message. She was pretty sure that they'd both rather see Shaz disqualified from the competition than see her take a thirty-foot tumble.

The third competitor passed the guy who'd fallen at the tyres just before the rope swing. Harris wasn't far behind and catching up fast. The cheers were becoming deafening. Alex urged Shaz on. Shaz's progress was slow, and she was still favouring one arm over the other, but there was no sign that the pain and fatigue were wearing down her determination. Alex looked back down the course. If the other contestants reached the tower before Shaz was at the top, the difficulty would increase yet again, with others pulling and pushing at the netting. Alex saw Harris vault a hurdle with ease, moving into second place. The guy who'd fallen over at the tyres was scrambling out of the water underneath the rope swing, to walk around and re-try the obstacle. At least it looked like Shaz wasn't going to come last.

Harris came to the tower, closely followed by the other competitor who almost matched him in age and build. Shaz, meanwhile, was about three feet away from the platform. She'd slowed further, but she hadn't stopped.

"Just a bit more, Shaz," Alex muttered. She turned to Gene beside her. "I'm pretty sure she's sprained that wrist."

"Yeah," he said. "Mackey won't let her go down that slide if she hasn't got two good hands."

Harris was gaining ground. The other guy on the net was proceeding more cautiously. Even above all the sounds of cheering, Alex's ears detected a feminine scream of pain as Shaz pulled herself up the remaining distance to the platform and managed to heave herself over its edge.

Beside her, Gene said, "Good girl." Alex rolled her eyes. He might be trying for 'supportive' but it did sound rather like he was talking to a pet dog.

Mackey took a moment to examine Shaz's right wrist. He'd either got Alex's message, or he'd noticed the way Shaz had been climbing. He moved the wrist, watching Shaz's face, and was apparently happy with what he saw because he turned her to the slide and guided her arms into position. Just as Shaz leapt from the tower, Harris made it to the platform. The man in third place was two thirds of the way up the netting, now, and the guy who'd needed to repeat two obstacles was just getting started.

The Fenchurch group moved along as Shaz whizzed down the slide. She managed – probably running on adrenaline – to half-curl her legs as she reached the puddle. The landing she made wasn't anything near perfect, but it was better than her previous attempt on the practice day, and only the lower part of her legs were caught in the chilling water. She scrambled up and out of the mud, heading for the final obstacle: the crawl.

On the second zip-slide, Harris made a terrific landing, rolled like a pro, and sprang up. He reached the ground-netting just as Shaz did.

"Go on Shazza!" came numerous yells. Even from Ray, who looked quite stirred by it all.

Shaz crawled. So did Harris. She had the better technique; he was stronger, less fatigued and not carrying an injury. He beat her by about five seconds, and Shaz emerged just as the third-place contestant began his crawl, covered though he was in the mud of a really bad zip-slide landing.

Harris sprinted up a slight incline to the finish line, spread his arms like he was an Olympian, and came in first. Shaz staggered after him. Second place. Fenchurch East went wild with their enthusiasm, and jumped and whooped. Alex calmed down when she realised that she'd put a hand on Gene's shoulder for support as she jumped up and down herself.

Twenty seconds later the third contestant finished. And a good minute after that the poor sod who'd fallen at the tyres stumbled across the line. The points were thus allocated: Harris on a perfect score of ten, Shaz on six, and the two others on four and two points respectively.

Considering the disadvantages Shaz had going in to this particular round, Alex thought that this was quite the impressive display of prowess. More to the point, the lads seemed to think so too. As soon as Chris was allowed, he broke free of the crowd of spectators and raced over to where Shaz sat on the ground, head between her knees, catching her breath. She looked up at him and beamed, and let him help her to her feet. Chris planted a lingering and rather passionate kiss on her mouth, which Shaz somehow found the energy to return.

Alex looked away, to see Ray rolling his eyes and doing the same. She found herself looking right at Gene, who lowered his head to her ear and said, "Not to worry, Bolly-knickers. When I kiss you, it won't be in front of the children."

She swallowed, and said in the same manner, "Thought we were being awkward with each other."

He studied her a moment, then he said, "I decided to get past that."

Then the Fenchurch group were moving to congratulate Shaz, and the moment was gone.

~~~

All four of the afternoon's heats were over after about an hour and a half, even with ten minutes between races to re-prepare the course. Since this was the first day of competition and Lord Scarman was present, the competitors and their colleagues were given the chance for tea-and-mingling in the centre's canteen. Gene sent most of the Fenchurch East lads back to base, just in case the capital produced some crime to fight, and he grumbled about the need to stop on and 'show his face' himself.

Shaz was in good spirits, in spite of the strapping now in place on her arm. Alex could understand why. While this exercise might not be about the winning _per se_ , the Guv had been right: it was about not making an arse of yourself. And Shaz had managed that, and then some.

In one corner of the canteen Josh Harris stood with a group of colleagues, head and shoulders above most people around him. He looked smug, exuding that sense of genetic entitlement that Alex found teeth-grindingly obnoxious. His eye caught hers, and the look he sent her was chilling. She shrugged it off. If she'd made an enemy there, that was fine with her. Harris wasn't the kind of man she'd want to count among her friends.

Mackey wandered over as people stood around in their groups and conversation buzzed. "You're lucky, young lady," he said to Shaz. "I almost didn't let you go down that slide."

Shaz looked Mackey up and down. Since Mackey was a good six feet tall, the 'up' part was quite some distance. Then she said, "I'd like to've seen you try to stop me."

Alex grinned. Gene gave his 'pleased' scowl. Chris looked like he couldn't possibly be any more in love than he was at that moment. Even Mackey smirked.

"Well," he said, "the thought I might get kicked in the goolies was a factor." He winked at Shaz. "Well done, girl. Well done." He turned to Alex. "Friday?"

She nodded. "Friday."

Mackey's eyebrow lifted, a bit flirtatiously. "Well, _I'll_ be looking forward to it."

"Your bias is starting to show," she told him. "Careful."

"Not my fault your station's entered the two prettiest contestants, is it?"

Mackey grinned and moved off. Gene huffed his impatience. "Shame, isn't it?" he said to Alex and Shaz. "That there isn't a round called 'flutter your eyelashes'?"

Alex shared a smile with Shaz. "I think it's just as well, myself," she said. "Far too much of an unfair advantage. And think of the practising we'd have to do first."

Shaz turned to Chris, eyelashes fluttering, and he gave a soft groan and stepped a little closer. Alex glanced at Gene. She widened her eyes suggestively. He glared. It rather looked like a 'keep this up and you'll find yourself pinned against the nearest wall' glare.

The teasing was interrupted by a familiar voice. "DCI Hunt," it announced, then, "DI Drake. And...don't I know you?"

Alex turned to see Lord Scarman peering quizzically at Chris. She had the vague memory of a fictitious flashing incident that had put Chris in a police cell as a plant. She could only hope that the new highlights in his hair distorted Scarman's memory.

Gene said smoothly, "Don't think so. This is DC Skelton. One of my team. And you saw WPC Granger compete, of course."

Scarman's attention turned to Shaz, leaving Chris to breathe relief and half-turn away. Scarman congratulated Shaz on her efforts, and she thanked him politely.

"Surprised me, Hunt," Scarman said. "Not one but two competitors from your office."

"Well, I'm flattered you took an interest," Gene replied, neutral of tone.

"And you had quite the crowd here, cheering Constable Granger on."

Gene sniffed. "Timing was lucky. No major cases on at the moment. Obviously our professional duties come first."

Alex decided to help him out. "It was lucky," she agreed. "I've only done the practice run so far, but I have to say – it makes all the difference to have your colleagues cheering from the sidelines."

Shaz caught on. "Oh, definitely," she said. "Not sure I'd've made it to the top of that tower if I hadn't known the lads were all here. Couldn't let them down."

Gene said, "We're a close-knit team at Fenchurch CID, sir."

Lord Scarman sensed the ranks closing, and lifted his chin so he could look at Gene down his rather lengthy nose. "And your two contenders are both female," he observed.

Alex watched Gene swallow the urge to offer sarcasm in response. She stepped in again. "Times are changing, Lord Scarman," she said. "And Fenchurch is very supportive of its female officers. Shaz and I are lucky in that regard."

Scarman grunted, unconvinced. Over his shoulder Alex could see Harris watching them with cool interest. Lord Scarman moved off to mingle elsewhere. Chris stopped trying to half-hide his face.

Gene looked at Alex, and at Shaz, and he said, "Teamwork, eh? Like we need lessons."

~~~

In Luigi's that evening Shaz was the star of the show. And since it was a quiet night for the restaurant, being mid-week, the drinking session turned into an impromptu party when the later diners had finished their meals and headed off. Music played over the sound system, and people danced, and there were frequent pauses as someone yelled, "To Shaz!" and everyone yelled the words back.

Alex sat at the bar alongside Gene, watching and smiling. "You know," she said, leaning against his shoulder, "sometimes I love it here."

He glanced her way. "Love?" he asked, as if the very word was foreign on his tongue. "Is that the one where your toes curl up and your belly flips over and your trousers get a bit tight?"

"Not that kind of love," she said, rolling her eyes. "But – look at them. A week ago they were grumbling their heads off at the idea of supporting a female colleague. Now they're a heartbeat away from hoisting Shaz up on their shoulders and doing a victory circuit of the restaurant."

"She didn't win."

"She might as well have done."

"She did us proud," he conceded.

"Have you told her that?"

He shot her another glance. "Not everyone's as needy as you are, Lady B."

"Oh piss off. And go and tell Shaz you're proud of her. It'll mean the whole world to her, trust me."

"I'm going nowhere near that dance floor," he said. "It's like a group bloody epileptic fit. All fun and games until Chris's elbow has someone's eye out."

Alex observed the Fenchurch coppers all engaged in their version of dance-moves, and while she saw the accuracy of Gene's comment, she decided she didn't care. "'Dance like nobody's watching,'" she quoted.

"What?"

"It's a famous poem." She frowned. "Or a song. Or it's from a film, or something."

"Not that famous then."

Alex frowned. She couldn't place the words. She was normally good at quotation games. "'Dance like nobody's watching, Love like you've never been hurt.'"

He turned to look at her. "The toe-curling kind, is that?"

She looked back. "In this instance, yes, I'd say so."

They paused a moment. Their faces were close. Alex dropped her gaze to study his lips, then caught herself being far too bloody obvious and turned to face forward again. Gene did the same. Perhaps he sensed treacherous terrain in the same way she had done.

He cleared his throat. "You been hurt, Bols?" he asked. Watching the antics on the dance floor with a steady gaze.

"I'm a divorcee. Of course I've been hurt." She glared at the bar. "Why?"

"Just asking."

"Fine. What about you?"

"What about me?" Gene still wasn't meeting her eyes.

"You're a divorcee too."

"So?"

"So are you going to tell me you went through that without so much as a twinge?"

"Nope. Not going to mention it, in fact."

Alex tut-tutted. "Right. So you get to ask me incredibly personal questions, and I get fobbed off."

"You didn't have to answer. And you brought it up."

"I suppose I did." She shot him a sly, sideways look. "So tell me, Gene. Did your toes do any curling in the last two minutes?"

Gene lifted his glass of whisky and drained it, then he got off his barstool. "I'm going to tell Shaz how proud I am of her." He walked away, swerving to avoid the flailing arms of half a dozen dancing coppers.

"I'm taking that as a yes!" she shouted after him.

~~~

Alex's competition day – the Friday of that week – brought with it a turn in the weather. She heard the rain against the window when she woke up, and all she could manage was a sigh of resignation. What else would the weather be doing on a day when she had to trudge through a muddy field and throw herself across obstacles?

She eased herself into the day with some gentle stretches, as she'd been doing for the past week now. At least the muscle-ache from Monday's practice run had subsided. The graze on her arm had dried out nice and clean, and the healing process was underway; she could feel it itching as the skin repaired itself. Still, she could have done without a sore patch there. On a physical assault course it would be a weakness.

And she was damned if she was letting anyone down. Least of all herself.

The morning passed in a flurry of unfamiliar activity, since a case broke that very day. A tip-off from one of the Guv's snouts alerted them to a drug deal taking place in Stepney, and the take-down was both clean and a welcome distraction from all that the afternoon held for Alex. She was even able to offer some insight on the individuals in question. Her work with Shaz, trawling through the East End's criminal fraternity, meant that the connections were fresh in her mind. She briefed the team, and afterwards Hunt gave her a rare thank-you which went some way to demonstrating how nervous he was on her behalf for the race that afternoon.

Come lunchtime they had four men in the cells, one of them relatively senior in the drug-dealing hierarchy. The processing would be laborious but not difficult, since the evidence had been seized with due care to procedure, and at least two of the men in custody were looking to sell out their brethren in the interests of earning themselves some leniency. But it all required man-power, which meant that Alex's team of cheerleaders that afternoon would be less numerous than Shaz had enjoyed. Alex couldn't help but think that this might prove to be a good thing.

Half an hour before they were due to set off for Dorking an incident in the station scuppered the whole plan. One of the briefs brought in to represent the arrested drug dealers turned out to be a plant. An attempt was made on the life of one of the minions that was looking to turn Queen's Evidence – an attempt that was fortunately unsuccessful – and a simple arrest-and-process got a lot more complicated. The supposed brief had come armed with a gun which enabled him to flee the scene. Fenchurch East had a manhunt on their hands, and the Guv was called in to see Superintendent Wilcox. He emerged after a meeting to tell Alex he'd been instructed to initiate this further investigation himself. Leaving the station that afternoon was no longer an option for him.

Alex hadn't even imagined going through the afternoon's trials without him. She didn't like the disappointment she felt. But it was hardly his fault, nor even Wilcox's, given the seriousness of the incident. So she got into a pool car with Shaz and Chris, and they drove out to Dorking. All the others stayed at the station.

At the outdoor pursuits centre she checked the schedule for the four heats, hoping that she could at least get it over with quickly. This was not to be; she was down for the last race that afternoon. Shaz stayed with her in the changing room for a while, then they went out to inspect the course as the races began to take place. The whole area was nothing but churned up mud. The only upside to the incessant rain was that spectators were thin on the ground.

Mackey spotted them as they hovered by the rope cordon, and he came over. He looked around, a bit furtively, then he said, "Listen, word of advice? Conditions like this, it's all about caution and technique. What time you lose taking it easy you gain back, and then some, not sliding about on your arse. And don't forget you're at a disadvantage. Up here." He pointed at his head. "You're up front, which means you're always thinking about the other blokes catching up. You'll be tempted to look back, and to hurry. Don't. Just worry about completing the course without injuring yourself. Okay?"

Clearly the Guv did not have the monopoly on pep-talks. But it was good advice, and Alex nodded her thanks.

It appeared that the competitors scheduled to participate in the first race had also got the same advice. The contest was slow – slower than Shaz's had been – and painful to watch. Chris tried to keep Alex's spirits up with disdainful comments about the other contestants. After a while she decided that standing in the cold rain was not the best preparation and she departed to warm up in the canteen. Shaz and Chris kept her company, though Chris kept ducking out to keep an eye on the races' progress and the conditions.

Just as Alex had started to check the wall clock regularly as the time neared that of her own scheduled race, Chris came dashing into the canteen.

"You might as well stay put for a while," he advised her. "Last race? Bloke took a bad fall from the rope-swing. There's an ambulance on its way – looks like he broke his arm. The staff guys here are checking the rest of the obstacles. See if the last race should even take place."

Alex considered the nerves in her belly, and that they might all have been for nothing. She lowered her head to her arms and gave an, "Ugh."

The wait for a decision extended to half an hour, then an hour. The canteen filled up. Three other contestants, their tracksuits not yet muddied beyond recognition, sat waiting as nervously as she did. Chris kept popping out for updates.

At half past four – an hour and a half after she'd been due to race – the decision came through. The course was sound, though the slippery ropes were being bound with extra ties to ensure a safe grip, and a temporary rail was being lifted into place on the tower-platform to guard against someone slipping on the wet wooden planks. It'd all be ready in twenty minutes.

Alex excused herself to the changing rooms, to use the facilities and try to talk herself back into some determination. Then she left the building and walked with her colleagues up to the start-line of the course. The rain, at least, had eased off. This wouldn't help the state of the ground, but it was one less thing to have to fight through.

Alex warmed up with some stretches, and used the chance to look at her fellow racers as they waited to take their positions. All men, of course; she'd only seen one other woman in a tracksuit that afternoon, and all the earlier competitors had left by now. The other participants in her race ranged in age from mid-twenties to mid-forties, and they all looked relatively fit. She reminded herself to worry about completing the course without injury, not about who might be gaining ground behind her.

By this time of the day there were barely a dozen spectators beyond the cordon. Alex took a place behind the start-line as requested, and focused on deep, slow, calming breaths. She told herself she could do this. It was just ten minutes or so out of her life. She was strong. She could punch like McGuigan. And just because Gene wasn't here, that didn't mean that she could even think about letting him down.

Everything grew quiet. Then...bang! And Alex got her head in the game.

She made it to the wall without falling arse over tit, which was in itself a small victory since the mud had turned the track into something of a skating rink. Mackey lifted her up and she grabbed a hold of the rope. It had been tied with rags, which was just as well because her hands were already threatening to slip. She remembered to wipe the soles of her feet and then got into her climbing position.

All in the motivation. Molly. She had to save Molly. She pulled herself up. Molly-Molly...it wasn't working. The cold wind, and the long wait, and the pressure...

No. No, she could do this. Over that wall _Gene_ was waiting, and he needed her and–

Alex rolled over the top of the wall and let herself down. She didn't allow herself the time to be surprised. She just dipped her head into the biting wind and focused on the next obstacle. The dreaded beam. Beneath it the puddle of muddy water looked like it had expanded since her practice run on Monday. Caution, Alex reminded herself. It had been overconfidence that had cost her a tumble last time. She used the vertical support of the beam to take the worst of the clinging mud from her trainers, then she stepped out and began to make her crossing.

Bang! She jumped at the sound. Already? Her balance teetered but she recovered. "Worry about yourself," she muttered. She made it to the end of the beam and leapt clear. In her periphery she could hear Shaz's voice ringing out over the shouts of the threadbare group of spectators.

Head down. Onwards. One of the hurdles was next. No way was she going to try to vault it. She scrambled over and landed on her feet. Good. Her breath was coming fast now, but she wasn't in any obvious discomfort. She moved on to the tyres.

Bang! But she didn't care. She concentrated on the position of her feet, and even if her skip through the tyres was a bit laboured, she didn't trip up. The final starter's pistol sounded just as she finished this obstacle. All four contestants were now on the course.

And then it was time for the rope-swing. She wondered if the earlier competitor really had broken his arm. Then she reminded herself again to worry only about herself. She mounted the bank and grabbed a hold of the rope, checked her grip, and swung out with a good push. It was enough; she didn't need to rinse and repeat. Alex let go when she was over not-very-dry ground and landed in a crouch. She wobbled and fell to her knees, but it was a better landing than she'd expected. So she got up and moved on.

Some distance behind her there came a yelp and a splash. She didn't care. She was focused. The next hurdle approached. She scrambled over this one, but by now she was breathing hard and her chest was tightening, and her hands were feeling cold and raw, and the muscles in her calves were aching because they were constantly tensing, compensating for the slippery mud she traversed. She landed on the other side of the hurdle in a leg-buckling heap and fell untidily to her side, jarring her shoulder with a grunt. The conditions were beginning to threaten her sense of determination. She realised she had a whole slew of wet mud attached to her tracksuit bottoms which was increasing the weight she was dragging around.

"Arse in gear, Bols," she muttered to herself, and staggered to her feet.

In a blur, something moved past her. She glared as she watched one of her fellow racers move into first place, and successfully fought the urge to put on a spurt of speed. She was glad she'd done so when, buoyed by his achievement, the competitor didn't take adequate care of his footing. With not a single obstacle within ten yards of them, his left foot slipped on a patch of mud and he landed heavily on his backside. Alex retook the lead.

Here came the tower. The rope netting was slippery and hadn't been adapted to the conditions. The tower was well over thirty feet in height. And she already ached all over.

From the side, Shaz yelled, "Technique, ma'am!"

She remembered. Three hand-and-foot holds. Steady does it. She reached the netting, grabbed a hold and started to climb. The shouts receded as she concentrated on getting through each second as it came along. Grip. Test. Move. Over and over. She made some headway, then the netting lurched under her and she needed to hang on for dear life. Another climber had started his ascent.

She still didn't care. She focused on technique. Her arms and legs were burning, and her heart was beating so fast she couldn't distinguish each separate pulse. No; the pain didn't matter. It was transient. She'd gone through childbirth, for crying out loud. She could do this. She kept going.

The other climber passed her when she was perhaps two thirds of the way up. He was a mess of mud. She thought about looking back to check the whereabouts of the other two, but made herself forget about them. Grip. Test. Move.

The man ahead of her had not learned from his earlier slip and was sacrificing safety for speed. He missed his footing and his leg plunged through a gap in the netting, and he only had one hand-hold in place to try to recover. He gave a cry of pain as his body twisted.

Still she kept going. She was a couple of feet from the top now. Mackey was looking down in concern at the guy who was trying to correct his hold on the netting. Alex was flagging. Stamina was not a bottomless well. She was a breath away from screaming frustration as she neared the very end of her strength. As if to taunt her, a freezing blast of wind hit her in the face, and the rain started up again with a vengeance. Her chilled, raw hands slipped on the rope-net, and she felt a wobble in her legs.

And in the distance someone bellowed, "Go on, Bolly. Go on! Arse in gear! _Now_!"

Was she fatigued to the point of auditory hallucination? She didn't care. It was enough to make her adrenaline surge, and she found the strength to make it over the last couple of feet. She rolled on to the platform, on to her front, then she pushed up to her knees.

"That's it, Bols!" came that familiar voice again, drifting on the vicious wind. She looked over the edge of the platform as she struggled to regain her feet, and _there he was_. He was holding a police radio and looking up at her, and she heard herself give a weary laugh.

"Drake," said Mackey beside her. She moved to the slide and let him guide her frozen hands into place. "Watch your landing," he whispered. Like she needed reminding now.

At the other end of the platform someone appeared. She didn't know whether it was the guy who'd twisted so badly on the netting or another contestant. It didn't matter. She could do this. She drew in a deep breath and launched herself down the zip-slide, and even if she didn't have the breath to spare for a whoop, she felt a renewed surge of exhilaration.

She groaned with the effort as she lifted her legs to come in to land, but she did manage to lift them. How could she not, given her new audience? She skidded over the water and fell to her side in the mud beyond, jarring her shoulder again. She heard her own cry of pain.

Just a little further now. She could still hear his voice. She didn't want to let him down.

She staggered rather than ran the distance to the crawl. From the corner of her eye she noticed another contestant take on the same obstacle. They were neck and neck. She remembered technique, and how Shaz had done this so well, and made herself try to copy it. Push from the knees, side to side, find a rhythm. The sludge beneath the netting was like treacle to move through, but she made progress. The pain in her chest and in her limbs was no longer an issue. That part of her brain had shut down.

She made it to the end of the netting and heaved herself out. She heard a noise and realised she was sobbing with the effort. Her body-weight felt like it had increased tenfold. The last dash to the finish line had to be uphill, didn't it? She stumbled away, rain and wind lashing her face, and her remaining focus was on not allowing her knees to buckle beneath her.

The incline was treacherous, as was the whole damn field. She slipped halfway up it and dropped to her knees. Beside her, she realised that after a similar fall her nearest competitor was taking the rest of the shallow hill on his hands and knees. Alex grasped a convenient tuft of hardy English grass and used it to pull herself to her feet again.

"Almost there! Go on, Bolly. Go on!"

She found one final burst of energy, gone almost as soon as she'd grabbed at it, but it saw her over the finish-line. A whistle sounded as she passed it, and she was pretty sure she'd won, but her brain wasn't functioning that well. Her legs gave way beneath her and she sank to her knees, then fell to her side, then rolled to her back. Lying in two inch-deep churned mud, she looked up at the sky, felt the cold rain wash over her face and she tried very hard not to have a heart attack.

Another whistle. A body crawled past her and slumped as she had. She thought she'd better get out of the way and tried to roll clear. One of the race officials came over to help her. He was reaching for her arms to drag her clear when he was muscled out of the way by six foot of Manc Lion. Gene's hands took her under her arms and pulled her clear of the finish-line area, to a further incline where the grass was wet but intact. He sank down on to it – or perhaps fell down on his arse, she wasn't quite sure – and hauled her body between his legs. Alex let her head fall on his chest, still sobbing for air. She closed her eyes.

"Christ, Bols," Gene said, somewhere above her. "You look a right bloody state."

"You're here," she gasped between breaths.

"Yeah, I'm here. And you won."

"I won?"

"You bloody won, you bolshie tart. Took half the ruddy field with you, n' all."

"Oh. Okay. Good." She tightened the arm she had wrapped over his leg. "Gonna die now, 'kay?"

"Shut up. Breathe."

It occurred to her, as the fatigue eased and her heart rate slowed down, that she was currently in the process of getting a superior officer covered in mud. While lying, panting, between his legs. In full view of her CID colleagues, who were no doubt watching from beyond the cordon that spectators were very definitely not supposed to pass.

"Gene," she said.

"Don't talk."

She smiled and squeezed his leg. "My toes are curling."

~~~

Alex emerged from the changing rooms forty minutes later feeling more or less human once again, albeit tired, aching and ready for an extremely large drink. Shaz and Chris had already gone back to the station in the pool car, leaving Gene on hand to drive her back in the Quattro. He hadn't intruded on the ladies' changing room this time.

A few officials still milled around, but most of the participants and their entourages had departed by then. A couple of people nodded at her and congratulated her, and she saw Mackey give her the thumbs-up from a distance as they left the building. Alex took Gene's arm, since her legs were still wobbly. His overcoat had a smear of mud down the front where she'd collapsed against him.

At the car, Gene paused to shrug his coat off and stow it in the boot. The rain was coming down hard, but after what Alex had been through that afternoon it didn't feel like much to have to cope with. She settled herself in the passenger seat and waited for Gene to clamber in behind the wheel.

"Okay then," she said, "tell me how you managed to show up like a miracle, just when I was thinking that letting go and plummeting to the ground was looking like a really good option."

He glanced at her. "Told Chris to take a radio, didn't I? Kept an ear on what was happening. When Chris said there'd been a delay, figured I might have chance to make it."

"What about our murderous fake brief?"

"Found him, cuffed him, charged him," Gene said smugly.

Alex smiled. "Oh, you police-god, you."

He started the engine and pulled away. Alex let her head fall back to rest against the car seat. The next thing she knew, the engine noise was cut and she lifted up her head in confusion, only to see the familiar surroundings of Fenchurch East's car-park.

"Oh," she said. "We're here."

"We are," Gene agreed. "And you snore."

"I bloody do not."

"Do."

"Well – only when I'm asleep."

He cracked a half-second smile, told her to stay put and got out of the Quattro. Then he walked around to open the passenger side door. He lent her an arm to help her get out.

The rain had eased again. Alex straightened and stretched. Everything hurt, but not as much as it would come the morning. Together they made their way up the ramp and into the station.

The moment she walked through the main doors into CID, the office erupted. Small cracks sounded as party-poppers were fired. A few officers had those party blower things that uncoiled when you tooted them. Someone – probably Shaz, Alex figured – had Blu-tacked a banner over the windows of the Guv's office: one letter per sheet of A4 paper. 'WELL DONE MA'AM!' Yes, definitely Shaz. The apostrophe was in the correct place.

Alex smiled and laughed at the attention, feeling a bit shy as everyone crowded around her. Since it was getting on for seven o'clock in the evening, booze was served to all present. Corks popped on bottles of Asti, and plastic cups were handed around. On the office stereo someone was playing Queen's 'We Are the Champions'. Everyone seemed to want to hug her, and more surprisingly, Alex wanted to hug everyone back.

"Smells like team spirit," she whispered to herself.

As the party settled down, the door to the office opened and Superintendent Wilcox himself strode in. He turned down the – perhaps slightly grudging – offer of a drink, and came over to congratulate her.

"Thank you, sir," Alex said. "But the real congratulations go to the team. Four drug dealers and a mob hitman is a hell of a day's work. I couldn't be prouder of them."

Wilcox looked nonplussed. Hunt stepped up close to her and said, "And we couldn't be prouder of DI Drake, right lads?" The lads cheered.

Shaz said, "Oy!"

"And Shaz," Hunt added. "Shaz is proud of you too."

Wilcox nodded and said, "Yes, good work, all of you." Then he left. Presumably wondering what planet he was on.

"Chris," Alex called over.

"Boss? I mean, ma'am?"

"Why didn't you tell me you had a radio?"

Chris looked shifty. "Oh. Um – well, the Guv told me not to."

Alex turned to Hunt. He shrugged. "Didn't want to get your hopes up," he said.

She arched a brow. "Right. Wouldn't want that, would we?"

He gave her his flattest look then turned away. Ray topped up her glass of fizzy. Alex went to find a seat, from which she could watch her colleagues celebrate without worrying about her legs collapsing underneath her.

~~~

They moved the party to Luigi's an hour or so later. Alex was required to go through a blow-by-blow account of her race on numerous occasions. Shaz, hovering close to her, insisted on embellishing the story further every time: usually at the point where Alex had been flagging as she clung to some rope netting, and the Guv had come racing up from the car-park, yelling at her to keep going. Shaz managed to make it sound awfully romantic. Alex reminded herself sternly that it had been nothing of the kind.

It was a Friday night and the restaurant was busy, which meant no dance-floor. Alex ended up in her usual seat, savouring the buzz from several glasses of wine, Gene beside her.

"I'm going to call it a night soon," she told him. "I need a bath. Otherwise I'm not going to be able to move tomorrow."

"And you need a massage," Gene said, eyes steady.

She darted a look his way, then stared at her wine. "I suppose it did help last time."

"You might need help getting out of the bath, n' all."

"You're determined to see me naked, aren't you?"

"I'll keep my eyes shut. Promise."

"Liar." Still, she finished her wine and then said, "Give me an hour? I'll, er, leave the door on the latch. Just in case."

She said her good-nights and made slow, achy progress outside and up the stairs. Alone in her flat, she smiled and went to run a bath. It had turned into a pretty good day.

Alex fell asleep again, this time as she reclined in steamy, foamy, fragrant water. She dreamed of sensual hands soothing their way over her body, and woke with a start to find her own hands doing their best to match the dream.

"Bolly?" Gene's voice called. Which explained what had woken her.

She snatched her hands out of the water – by now heading for 'lukewarm' – and swallowed. "Still in the bath," she called back.

"Need a hand?"

Alex took a moment to breathe, and it was enough time for her reservations to reappear. "No thanks. I'll just be a few minutes."

She got herself out of the bath and dried off. Then she wrapped herself in her dressing gown and padded across the hall to her bedroom, where she donned a pair of pyjamas. Even as the muscles in her arms protested, she managed to brush her damp hair. She considered her face in the mirror on the dressing table. Her eyes looked odd to her without any make-up, but it was a hell of a time of day to start worrying about re-applying eyeliner and mascara so she shrugged and left things the way they were.

Gene was sitting on the sofa, legs propped up on the coffee table and a bottle of beer in his hand. He looked her way as she came into the room and sat down beside him.

"Any better?" he asked.

"Think so. I nodded off again."

"How's the arm? I meant to ask."

"It's fine. A bit sore." Alex rubbed at it through her dressing gown. "It took a bang or two during the race. And of course the injury was in exactly the wrong position for the crawl. But it's still dry."

He studied her, and shook his head.

"What?" she asked.

"You only bloody won."

"You sound surprised."

"I saw what the conditions were out there."

"You thought I'd balk at a bit of mud?"

"Stubborn bit o' skirt like you? No."

"But you didn't think I'd win."

Gene got up and went into the kitchen. Over his shoulder he said, "Did _you_?"

She gave a small laugh. "I told myself that placing third would be a decent result." She'd told herself that, though she hadn't really believed it. She'd always been an overachiever. "Didn't want to come last."

"Well, turns out you wouldn't have. Long as you actually finished. One of the blokes didn't manage that much."

She hadn't realised that. "Oh. Wow." She frowned. "So does he still get two points?"

Gene appeared from the kitchen with a pint-glass filled with water. He set it down before her. "Not even for effort," he said. "No finish, no score. Drink that. You need to rehydrate. You need aspirin?"

"No, I'm fine." She drank some water.

He sat back down again. "Feet," he ordered.

She considered reasserting her claim that she was ticklish, but there didn't seem any point. So she swivelled on the sofa and placed her bare feet in his lap. Gene began to rub them. Alex swallowed a groan and let her head fall back to the arm of the sofa.

"For the record?" she murmured, as she relaxed into the massage. "I'm in absolutely no state to do anything very exciting."

"Yeah? For the record, I'm not a bloody moron."

She smiled. "I know."

"Stop talking. Just moan for me, Lady Bols."

"Oh, you really are the–" She stopped talking, because his thumb was tracing the arch of her instep and it felt heavenly. " _Ohh_."

"Yeah," he said, voice a touch strained. "That'll do it..."

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You got to sing like you don't need the money,  
> Love like you'll never get hurt.  
> You got to dance like nobody's watchin',  
> It's gotta come from the heart  
> If you want it to work."
> 
> Richard Leigh and Susanna Clark, 'Come from the Heart' 1987
> 
> NB. These lyrics can be found in various other formats, attributed to much earlier and more literary sources, but those attributions are not supported. There's no evidence that the words existed prior to Mr Leigh and Ms Clark writing them in a Country Music song in the eighties.


	3. Chapter 3

The weekend passed and the aches receded. All except the intimate ache, anyway. That one seemed to be intensifying. Alex was a little bit afraid to attend to it personally, for fear of the name she'd find herself breathing at the moment of truth.

Flirtation was one thing. But she absolutely, one hundred per cent, without a single shadow of a doubt, refused to fall for a superior officer. Especially a man whose attitudes belonged in the prehistoric.

As fortune would have it, the looming contest of the following week still offered a welcome distraction. Chris and Shaz spent a lot of the weekend with her, practising general knowledge questions and then trying out their versions of the other rounds. Chris had managed to score a VHS copy of some episodes of _The Krypton Factor_ that they watched with interest and used as a template for their own attempts.

Come Monday morning, Alex went to cheer Shaz on at Westminster's Central Hall with a small group of her colleagues. The Guv went along; he seemed pretty invested in the competition at this point, though he'd probably have denied this. Chris went too, of course, as the chairman of the Shazza fan-club. Terry and Bammo made up some more numbers, but Ray stayed at CID, preening at having been put in temporary charge of the rest of the lads. There was still quite a lot of paperwork and processing to do with regard to last week's drug-deal and attempted murder.

The conference centre was busy, since this was the first day of the indoor competition rounds. Shaz was due to appear in the first heat of the day, scheduled to begin at ten o'clock that morning. She'd been asked to wear an item of clothing that denoted her 'colour' and had opted for a blue blouse that Alex had lent her. Shaz looked older in it than she usually looked, which disconcerted Alex for a moment – did she really have an 'older woman' wardrobe these days? – before Alex realised that the difference was down to Shaz's new hairstyle. The pageboy cut of last year had made her look so youthful.

People settled in rows of seats looking up at a wide stage area. Shaz made sure she knew where her colleagues were sitting, then she went to check in with the contest officials. The rest of them tried to get comfortable in the folding chairs that were set out. This wasn't easy. Institutional folding chairs were never comfy.

As they all settled, Alex looked around. She knew she'd been in this hall before but she couldn't place the memory. Not for a while, anyway, then it came to her. Pete had dragged her along here with him one weekend to a comics mart, back when they'd been first dating. Late eighties, she thought: which made it more 'forward' than 'back', but this wasn't the time to scramble her thoughts with those ideas. The hall had been filled with stalls selling comics and graphic novels and those little figures they made of characters from science fiction shows. It really hadn't been her area of interest, and she'd been bored out of her mind, however much she'd wanted to share her new boyfriend's enthusiasm. He hadn't invited her along again.

On her right hand side, Chris leaned in and said, "I am bricking it." He was wiping his palms constantly on the thighs of his jeans. Alex patted his shoulder. "I mean it," Chris went on. "She's going to be up there, in front of everyone. God, I'm a bag of nerves."

"She's going to do great," Alex told him. "Calm down. When she looks over here, she'll want to see you confident on her behalf, not having a nervous breakdown."

Chris nodded, stopped wiping his hands and tried to strike the kind of pose in his chair that exuded confidence. His smile was more of a grimace. Alex rolled her eyes and looked away. On her other side, the Guv checked his watch. The proceedings hadn't started yet, and he looked like he was already fed up.

Having spent the weekend watching episodes of the television show this contest was based on, Alex couldn't help but think that it all looked a bit make-do-and-mend up there on the stage. There were four small desks with chairs for the competitors. On the desks were buttons that looked – from a distance – like doorbells, and microphones fixed in position at the corners. A strip of electrical tape at the front edge of the desk denoted the contestant's colour. From left to right the colours were organised alphabetically: blue, green, red, yellow. In front of the row of desks was a long bench, currently covered with a black drape. To one side another desk and chair were angled to partly face the audience and partly face the contestants: the quiz-master's station. Behind it was a makeshift scoreboard: four places to hang cards with numbers on them, each place distinguished by its own coloured stripe. Shaz's blue scorecard already read '6' after the points she'd accumulated on the assault course. Alex narrowed her eyes at Josh Harris's '10'. If nothing else happened in Shaz's heat, she wanted to see Harris finish with a lower score than Shaz did.

As ten o'clock approached, the hall filled up and conversation buzzed. At the side of the stage the four competitors for the first heat gathered along with the contest officials and Assistant Commissioner Anthony Rutherford, one of the Met's top brass, who'd be acting as the host and quiz-master. Lord Scarman had shown up again, of course, never one to miss the opportunity to pontificate. Alex eyed Shaz; she seemed to be doing the breathing exercises Alex had taught her. At least it gave her something to keep her mind focused.

Lord Scarman took to the stage and was given a microphone. He spoke into it but no sound came through, so he did the usual dance of patting it and squinting at someone off-stage. Once it was working, he delivered a speech to the crowd, thanking them for attending and telling them how impressed he was so far with the level of commitment and support the competition was receiving. It was basically a speech about how good his idea had been. Gene huffed beside her with every bit of 'Aren't I clever!' subtext.

And then the contest proper began. The lights over the audience darkened, while the lights on the stage grew bright. Rutherford took his place at the quiz-master's desk, and the four contestants walked out on to the stage to their respective desks. Everyone applauded. As the applause died down, Chris called, "Go on, Shaz!" He was the only one to offer such support, and came off sounding more like a Tourette's sufferer than anything else.

Rutherford began, after another obligatory whine from the microphone, by introducing the contestants from left to right, starting with Shaz. He gave her name, age and rank, and a short statement about her working assignment and interests according to the entry forms all competitors had filled in.

He did the same for the other contestants. Then he reviewed the placings from the physical fitness round. Then he announced the first round of the day: mental agility.

The black drape over the bench was removed by a pair of officials, to reveal six large objects: geometric shapes. They were all different in colour and form. Beneath them there were numbers denoting their position: from the audience side, the numbers went from '6' to '1', left to right. Shaz would thus see the shape in position '1' to her left.

The contestants were given thirty seconds to memorise the sequence, then the shapes were covered up again. Alex glanced at Harris to see his lips moving as he repeated the sequence to himself. She smirked. She hoped he was in much less comfortable territory today than he'd been last week.

The round would be played as a 'knock-out' competition. Rutherford explained that each contestant would be asked a question, in turn, about the shapes: questions which would get progressively more difficult. When a contestant answered incorrectly they'd be expelled from the round. The points would be distributed according to the length of time a contestant stayed in the round: the first contestant to fail would receive two points, and the last man standing would get the full ten. Any 'ties' would result in an additional question, to be answered on the buzzer.

Shaz kicked off proceedings by answering correctly that the shape in position '4' was white. All four contestants answered their first question just fine. They did the same for their second question. For the third set, all but the yellow contestant got their question right. 'Yellow' was disqualified from the rest of the round. There was a groan from a few rows back, and Alex turned around. It seemed 'yellow' had some supporters here, and they weren't happy with this start.

By now the questions were getting trickier. "How many sides," Rutherford asked Shaz, "did the shape two positions to the left of the shape in position three have?"

Shaz hesitated, then she clarified, "My left, is that, sir?" Rutherford confirmed this. "Four," she answered. Correctly. Alex let out a breath and realised that on both sides of her, her colleagues were doing the same.

The two other remaining contestants got their answers right too. Gene shuffled next to her and muttered, "Christ, we're going to be here all ruddy day."

"Blue contestant," Rutherford said. "Multiply the number of sides the shape in position two has by the number of sides that the shape in position four would _need_ in addition to those it already has in order to become an octagon."

Gene muttered, "What?"

Alex frowned and did a quick calculation. "Nine," she whispered.

Shaz said, "Nine?" She didn't sound confident. But she was right.

"How the bloody hell did you know that?" Gene whispered.

"Position two is a triangle. That's three. Position four is a pentagon. That's five. Eight minus five is three. Three times three is nine."

Gene pouted at her for a moment. "Show off."

"I'm guessing it's easier to do from down here than up there," she said.

Chris wiped his hands on his jeans.

~~~

The round finished with Shaz victorious, and the Fenchurch East group cheered loudly. The audience was loosening up as the contest became familiar. The scoreboard was adjusted. Shaz was now on '16'. The green contestant was on '8'. Josh Harris, in the red corner, was on '14' and the yellow contestant was on '6'. Shaz had taken the lead.

"You were right," Gene murmured to Alex as the applause died down. "Mental agility. She's a smart little plonk, isn't she?"

It was time for the observation round. The contestants all turned their chairs around to look at the back of the stage, where a screen had been mounted on the wall. A few minutes were lost as the projector failed to behave itself, then the technical difficulties were resolved and the clip began. Rather than the usual _Krypton Factor_ fare of some current ITV drama, the clip was an in-house production. Self-conscious coppers talked about the correct use of police radio: a little corporate training video. The clip ran for about four minutes.

When it was over the contestants all turned to face the audience again, and the questions began. There were two rounds of individual questions on the clip, each correct answer earning two points. Then the questions became a free-for-all, with contestants required to press their doorbell buzzers when they had the correct answer.

It was the speed-factor that killed Shaz in this round. She did fine on the individual stuff, but she wasn't fast enough on the buzzer for the later questions. It was an issue of aggression, Alex suspected. Unlike her fellow competitors, Shaz didn't have the confidence to buzz immediately after the question was asked and rely on the additional two or three seconds she'd then have for her brain to provide her with the answer.

At the end of the round, the scores stood as follows: blue on '20', green on '12', red on '20' and yellow on '12'. Harris had caught up. Across the hall, Harris's supporters cheered. He looked in their direction and clenched a victorious fist.

The contest wasn't over yet, though. The intelligence round was next. Officials brought on trays that they placed on the contestants' desks. The round took the form of a two-dimensional puzzle that needed to be solved: a sort of jigsaw, all one uniform colour, with flat blocks of differing geometric shapes that should all fit together to fill a larger oblong frame. Since this contest was not taking place in a television studio, the apparatus for the puzzle precluded the audience from following along with the contestants' progress. Officials stood behind each contestant to monitor fairness.

The round was on a stopwatch. The points would be distributed according to the order of completion, with the fastest contestant getting ten points again. Rutherford initiated the round with a, "Ready, set, go!" and the officials removed the covers that had hidden the puzzles from view.

"Come on, Shaz," Alex muttered.

Gene whispered, "How is this supposed to show intelligence? It's a jigsaw puzzle. They give 'em to five year olds."

"Spatial recognition," she whispered back. "Just – trust me. It's a thing."

"Oh, well, if it's a 'thing'..."

Rutherford had got up from his desk and was wandering back and forth along the row of competitors as they fiddled with their blocks. Microphone in hand, he was trying to offer a commentary of the kind that Gordon Burns would have given on the telly. He might as well have kept his mouth shut, for all the information this actually offered the audience.

Beneath the bright lights of the stage Shaz was perspiring with the tension. So were all the others, of course. She seemed focused enough. Rutherford informed them that a minute had passed.

"You know," Gene muttered, "the assault course was a lot less boring."

"Right," Alex agreed, rolling her eyes. "When I was doing it, that was my main thought. Hooray! My colleagues aren't bored!"

"I'm just saying."

"Shaz is doing great. And there's only one more round after this, then you can go and have a ciggie."

Gene grunted acknowledgement. There was a pause. In the hall, murmured conversations were springing up all over the place as the rest of the audience got bored too. On the stage, Rutherford informed them that two minutes had passed.

Gene leaned in and murmured, "So you were busy with Shaz and Chris this last weekend."

Alex frowned, glanced at him and nodded. "Yes. Why?"

"Just thought I'd mention it. In case you were wondering."

"Wondering what?"

"Why I never rang you. Or popped round."

"Why would I have been expecting you to do that?" she asked. Which was a little disingenuous of her, considering the way they'd spent Friday evening, but it seemed like the safe option.

Gene considered her a moment, all narrowed eyes and pout, then he said, "The day's coming closer, remember, Bols."

She looked back and said, "I haven't forgotten." Then she returned her attention to the stage.

Josh Harris was starting to look irate. His face was glowing a similar red to that of his necktie. It seemed that every time he thought he was making headway with his puzzle, he realised that he'd end up with a hole that his last couple of pieces wouldn't fill. He had, Alex realised, no better technique for this round than trial and error.

"You know what would be really funny?" she murmured to Gene. Mainly to change the subject they'd been discussing moments beforehand.

"What?"

"If Harris got annoyed and threw the pieces on the floor, then he sat down with his arms folded and shouted that he isn't playing anymore."

Gene scowled a moment. "Briefly amusing, maybe. Really funny? No. Why isn't Shaz moving her pieces around as much as the others?"

"Because she's solving the puzzle in her head rather than on the tray. Faster that way."

"I don't get it."

"She's a smart little plonk." Alex rolled her eyes. "God, I can't believe I just said that."

Rutherford announced that three minutes had passed. The conversations in the hall were buzzing now. Rutherford gave up on his commentary and went back to his desk. Alex amused herself by noting all the officials who were starting to shoot each other nervous looks. She remembered reading somewhere that the original intelligence round for _The Krypton Factor_ could extend to as much as half an hour in real time, though edited highlights were all that the episode itself would show.

And then, just after Rutherford had called the four minute mark, Shaz seemed galvanised into action. She began to load up her oblong tray with the geometric pieces, nice and confident. Alongside her the green contestant tried to shoot sneaky looks at what she was doing without being obvious. He failed, since the official standing behind him stepped closer and had a quiet word in his ear, and the contestant cringed and blushed and returned his attention to his own puzzle.

Shaz finished loading up her pieces. They all fitted perfectly. The official standing behind her came forward, checked the solution, then re-covered the tray. The hall gave Shaz a smattering of applause, uncertain as to how loud they could be while the round remained ongoing. Shaz took her seat and rolled her head on her shoulders to relax some of the tension.

"Oh, you go, girl," Alex breathed.

"Go where?" Gene asked.

"Just a figure of speech."

"Oh. So she won, right?"

"She did. Ten points. Now let's hope that Harris the twat-face comes last."

Gene lifted his chin and glared at the red constestant. "You really don't like him, do you?"

"He's a narcissistic arsehole."

Shaz, recovering from her efforts, sought out her colleagues in the audience. Alex gave her a double-thumb's-up. Chris blew her a kiss. The Guv offered his most approving scowl.

On six minutes the yellow contestant finished his puzzle and sat down. On ten minutes, Harris finally jammed his last piece into place and backed off, looking like he wanted to give the desk a good kicking. Seconds later the last contestant finished. The points stood: blue on '30', green on '14', red on '24' and yellow on '18'.

The audience applauded loudly, probably because they needed to get the boredom and tension out of their system. Chris cried out, "Get in there Shazza!" Other people were now cheering on their own contestant, even though it seemed as if the last round was going to be a formality. Shaz had opened up quite an impressive gap between her score and that of her nearest rival.

General knowledge was next. It'd be pot luck, really, Alex considered. If you knew the answer, great; if you didn't, not so great. Rutherford explained the set-up. Like the observation round there'd be two lots of individual questions, then they'd all be on the buzzers for some quick-fire stuff.

Alex hoped that Shaz had learned from the earlier round and would find the confidence to buzz in faster. Especially since it seemed that there was to be no deterrent for answering incorrectly, like subtracted points.

Alex swallowed. If Harris got lucky with his individual questions and then stormed the buzzer, there was still a chance he could steal this from Shaz...

~~~

Shaz's first question was as follows: "How many people take part in the dance of a quadrille?"

Shaz, not looking confident, guessed, "Four." Alex gave a soft groan. Rutherford corrected her and said that the answer was eight. Across the hall a group of people cheered loudly at her failure: Harris's supporters from Hanfield.

"Oh, very bloody sporting," Alex muttered.

'Green' got his question right. Not that it mattered since he had far too much ground to make up now.

Harris was asked, "The green jacket is presented to the winner of which sporting event?" and he answered correctly, "The US Masters." The cheering got louder. Beside Alex, Gene turned to look at where the noise was coming from. Chris, Terry and Bammo were doing the same. Eye contact would soon be made. Alex didn't like the way all this was going.

'Yellow' failed to answer correctly. Rutherford returned his attention to Shaz.

"Who was the youngest President of the United States?" he asked.

Alex widened her eyes. They'd encountered this question in Chris's pub-quiz paperback! Shaz brightened and said, "Theodore Roosevelt." Correct.

The hall resounded with Fenchurch East's cheers. This seemed oddly impressive for five people in a room containing several hundred, until Alex turned around and noticed, a few rows back, Clive – the other red contestant from her practice run at the assault course – sitting with a bunch of colleagues and cheering Shaz on just as loud. He saw her looking and waved. She waved back.

Gene was still glaring at the Hanfield lot. Alex nudged his arm. "Guv," she murmured, as Rutherford moved on to the poor, hapless green contestant on stage. "This isn't going to end in a punch-up, is it?"

He grunted and sat back straight. "Makes you say that?"

"You seem to have adopted your punch-up face."

"Like it, do you?" His eyes flashed at her.

"Oh do get over yourself, you ridiculous throwback."

"I'd rather get over _you_. Throw _you_ back–"

"Not really the time for this, Gene."

He hid his smile under his scowl. "Who's cheering for Shaz behind us?"

"Remember Clive? Nice man from the assault course?"

"Right. How are they in numbers?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Are you strategising the punch-up?"

"Forewarned is forearmed, Bols."

'Green' got his question wrong. Rutherford turned to Harris and asked, "What is the official language of Brazil?"

Alex tut-tutted. It seemed that the whole thing was rigged to give Harris the easiest questions.

Beside her, Chris muttered, "Um – Brazilian?"

Alex said, "No, Chris, that's something else."

Harris answered, "Portuguese." The Hanfield lot went wild.

'Yellow' got his question right. The scores stood at: blue on '32', green on '16', red on '28', yellow on '20'. Harris was now just four points behind. It was time for the quick-fire part of the round. Rutherford asked for two minutes on the clock, and they were off.

And Harris had a strategy here, Alex couldn't help but notice. He buzzed as soon as the question was done, whether or not he knew the answer. Half of his replies were, "Um...sorry." Or a wild, silly guess. At this point the question was offered to the rest of the contestants.

But the strategy was a good one, because Harris got the other half of his answers correct, and he began to accumulate points. The disruption to the flow – along with the way Shaz still wasn't confident enough to beat anyone to the buzzer – meant that Shaz, meanwhile, did not.

Gene was monitoring the two minute timeframe on his own digital watch. Alex reached over and pulled his wrist closer so that she could watch it too. She noticed that her knee was joggling with the tension and forced it to stop. Chris was wiping his hands constantly. With just over half a minute to go Harris overtook Shaz on points, and was even threatening to pull away.

"Come on, Shaz," Alex muttered. "Believe in yourself. Don't let this bloody great oaf steal it from you. Not with cheating. Not like this."

Rutherford asked, "In which organ of the body is insulin produced?"

Shaz's buzzer sounded. Harris looked furious, slamming his hand down over and over on his own buzzer, as if it had somehow stopped working. Which it had, of course, once the circuit had been completed by someone else. Shaz had got there first.

"Hey!" Harris shouted.

"Please be quiet, red contestant, or you'll be disqualified from the rest of the round," Rutherford said. The remark left Harris seething. "Blue contestant, your answer?"

"The pancreas," Shaz said. And got herself two more points. Fenchurch cheered, but not loudly and not for long because time was running out.

Rutherford asked, "In which year was Mahatma Gandhi assassinated?"

Harris got there first this time, but didn't know the answer and guessed, "1971." Alex rolled her eyes and willed Shaz to get the follow-up. She did. She didn't look confident, but she said, "1948?" She was right. She got two more points. She was now level with Harris again.

'Green' and 'yellow' looked as though they were hardly interested anymore. Like they were happy to just put their feet up and watch. Less than ten seconds to go. Shaz needed to get this one.

Rutherford asked, "By what name is Edson–"

Buzz! Harris looked delighted. He'd got in there before the question even finished. Rutherford waited for his answer. The seconds ticked down. Harris pretended it was on the tip of his tongue. Rutherford pressed him. Just as it looked like his strategy of wearing the clock down was going to backfire, Harris blurted out, "Pele!"

The clock ticked down to zero. The round was over. And the red contestant, Mr Strapping himself, Josh Harris from Hanfield, had nicked the competition by two points thanks to some pretty underhand buzzer work.

Across the hall, Hanfield erupted. Alex slid down in her chair. On the stage, Shaz looked exhausted and depressed, and she dropped her head to her arms on the desk before her. Harris looked like he wanted to do a victory circuit of the hall. Interestingly, there were pockets around the hall that were crying, "Boo!" and, "Shame!" and even, "Cheat!" Alex glanced at the front row of the spectators, to see Lord Scarman looking around in discomfort and conferring with nearby high-up guests. When Harris noticed that the hall wasn't uniform in offering him its congratulations his eyes narrowed and the fury he'd already demonstrated returned. He seemed to be seeking out those who were decrying the result. Funnily enough, though Alex herself wasn't shouting anything at all, it was upon her that Harris's gaze settled.

Rutherford rounded things off with the final scores. Shaz had managed 36 points. Harris was on 38. Neither of the other two were anywhere near them.

Beside Alex, Gene muttered, "Well, that wasn't bloody fair."

Alex nodded. "An incorrect answer should cost you points. That's the only way to stop this kind of cheating."

The audience applauded as the heat closed. There were still a few boos. People got up, advised that there would be a twenty-minute break before the next heat commenced. Chris moved over to the stage to commiserate with Shaz, who'd done so well and, in the end, lost unfairly.

Alex sighed hard. "Guv," she said.

"What?"

"Let's go and start a punch-up."

~~~

It was the tears in Shaz's eyes that almost clinched the deal. As the Fenchurch group reunited, Chris's arm around Shaz's shoulders in silent support, Shaz sent this watery-eyed look of apology and unhappiness to the Guv. Alex could sense – in fact she could almost _see_ – how that single Shaz-look threatened to push Gene Hunt over the edge of his restraint.

He was a throwback, and he was rude and brash and inappropriate, and sometimes he was even dislikable. But it could never be said that he wasn't there for his team. Loyalty was a defining characteristic for the Guv. The current situation boiled down to one quite simple issue:

Someone had hurt a member of his team. Therefore that someone needed to be punished.

Fortunately, by that point, Alex herself had lost the urge to go storming over to the other side of the hall and find someone from Hanfield to knee in the balls. So even as she watched the Guv square his shoulders and cast around to see where Josh Harris was standing, she placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned in close to his ear.

"Guv," she said, "there's a better way of doing this."

"Not now, Bols," he muttered, still looking. There was a vein throbbing in his temple. His hands had got ahead of the rest of him and were already clenched into fists.

"Seriously. Lose the red mist, okay?"

"Bolly, you can either shut up or you can help, but you–"

"I've been thinking about you all weekend," Alex murmured in his ear, pretty much out of desperation. It worked. Gene shook his head as if his brain had just done a double take, stopped looking around the milling crowd and instead turned to her in surprise. "Naughty thoughts," she breathed. "Bad-girl thoughts." His eyebrows arched. "Okay, good. I have your attention now, do I?"

Gene frowned. "What?"

"Deep breath. Calm down. There is a better way of doing this."

"Of doing...what are we talking about here, Bols?"

"Getting some justice for Shaz."

"Oh." The frown deepened. "I thought–"

"I was just trying to distract you."

"Oh." He glanced to the side. Shaz was now wearing her 'brave soldier' face and the others were all commiserating with her, telling her how it wasn't fair and if the rules had been up to scratch then she'd have stormed her heat. Telling her that she'd been incredible and everyone in the hall knew that she'd deserved to win. "What better way?"

"Think about it," she said. She grabbed his arm and drew him further away. "We go and start a fight now, we just look like bad losers. Scarman holds us up as an example of everything that's wrong with the Police Force. _I_ probably get disqualified. And Harris goes on to get the kudos of appearing in the Met's play-offs, with the chance of participating in the finals."

"Yeah, but, other hand? We all feel a lot better after we've rearranged his face," Gene pointed out. "I'll hold him while you punch, if you want."

"It's a tempting thought, believe me, but there's a better way. Look, you heard the audience at the end of the heat. We weren't the ones boo-ing. Maybe Clive's lot started it off, but there were a lot of people unimpressed with what they saw. We can use that."

"How?"

"Talking. Gaining support. Networking. Starting a groundswell of opposition."

Gene shot her a confused look. "It's a poxy bloody team-building competition, not a revolution."

"I know. But I can do this. I can change this." Alex was gaining confidence with her idea. She'd noticed the way Rutherford and Scarman were currently in deep and troubled discussion to one side of the stage. "I can make sure that when Harris appears in his play-off, the strategy he used today to win the heat will _not_ serve him again. And that? Oh, trust me, Gene, that will hurt him more than any punch to his stupid, strapping, steroid-enhanced jaw."

"Change what?"

"The rules. It's easy. All we need to do is make them take points off for wrong answers. That stops Harris – and anyone else who wants to cheat in the same way – from buzzing in when they don't know the answer. Just to disrupt the rest and run down the clock."

He pouted at her, still dubious. "Networking."

"We aren't the only people in the hall today who noticed that Harris won unfairly. I'm going to cultivate that opinion. And I'm going to start with Clive's group. He's up for the next heat. I'm going to stay here, sit with them, cheer him on, all coppers together. And while I do that I'm going to talk to whoever will listen about how unfair the first heat was."

"And then?"

"Then I'm going to encourage them to talk to other coppers about it. Word of mouth, Gene. It's a powerful thing. Dissent will spread like ripples."

"You're a bloody malcontent," he said.

"In this? Yes I am. And so are you. Unless you're saying you're now content with the way Harris's devious strategy just shafted Shaz out of a well-deserved victory?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe I'm a malcontent too," he conceded.

"Right. And later in the week I'll talk to Wilcox, and explain how Shaz did us all proud and was cheated out of her win. I'll tell him how lots of people in the hall were disgusted with the result of her heat. And how Lord Scarman should be aware that this is undermining the success of his team-building plan. And that one little rule-change would prevent it happening again."

Gene still didn't look convinced.

"And as a _coup de grâce_ ," Alex said, "I'm going to point out how the rule – as it stands – is inherently misogynistic."

He blinked. "It is?"

Alex nodded. "If you squint. See, as it stands, the rule favours contestants who are aggressive and confident. The Police Force is a male-dominated environment, and women are still fighting to find a voice. And respect. As a gender we've got thousands of years of history behind us. History that has consistently told us that we aren't as good as men, and should keep quiet and know our place."

Gene sniffed. "Yeah, you're not very good at history, are you, Bols?"

"Oh shut up. Look, I can do this. I doubt they'll replay the heat now, and I can't see them changing the rule for the other heats since they'll need to demonstrate a level playing field. But I can make them change it for the play-offs. And that? Will fuck Josh Harris sideways."

Gene narrowed his eyes. "You're really angry about this, aren't you?"

"I'm pretty sure there's steam coming out of my ears."

He hesitated a moment, then he nodded. "Suppose we can delay the retribution for a while. Okay, Bols. You go and play politics. But I'm getting Shaz back to the office. She shouldn't have to stay here."

"Agreed."

He sniffed again. Then he said, "Bad-girl thoughts?"

Alex held up her hands and stepped back. "Just trying to get your attention."

"Liar."

She gave him her most wide-eyed look of wounded innocence, and then disappeared into the milling crowd in the hall to go and find Clive.

~~~

By the time that Wednesday swung around, Alex realised that she'd been so busy cultivating this groundswell of disapproval that she'd forgotten something rather important.

She had to get through her own heat too.

She told Shaz on the Wednesday morning that there was no need for her to attend the Central Hall if she didn't want to. Shaz was having none of it. Having failed to proceed further than her first heat, Shaz had now defined her role as that of support for Alex. Indeed, most of the office wanted to come along to support Alex too. The righteous indignation she had been fostering wherever possible had infected Fenchurch East CID to a potent degree. They all seemed to think that it would only be fair that Alex got through to the next round, after what had happened with Shaz.

So much for 'no pressure', Alex mused. If she let the team down now...

Superintendent Wilcox called her in on Wednesday, before she was due to leave for her afternoon heat. She'd been waiting for the summons. The Super asked to see the Guv too, which immediately rendered the situation less manageable in Alex's eyes. Playing politics tended to require the careful gauging of words: not something Gene Hunt was famous for.

They left CID together, but before reaching Wilcox's office Alex opened the door to a convenient storeroom and hauled Hunt inside.

The Guv arched a suggestive brow and said, "I applaud the sentiment, Bols, but shouldn't we get this meeting out of the way first?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "I need you with me on this, Guv."

"Like I said, I applaud the–"

"I mean it. This is about fairness. And team. And Shaz. I need you seeing this whole thing through her eyes. My eyes." She gave a sigh. She couldn't quite believe she was about to say this to Gene Hunt, the Manc Lion. "For the coming half hour, I need you to get in touch with your feminine side."

He leered. "I'd rather get in touch wi' yours."

"Yes, thank you, I'm aware that there is unresolved sexual tension between us. Believe me. But for right now I need you to focus. Try to imagine that you joined the police not as a big strong man with nothing to prove, but as a woman. Someone who's been subjected to sideways looks all her life. 'What's she doing here? Who does she think she is, working in law enforcement? Should be at home washing dishes and dropping sprogs.' Can you imagine that? Every day, needing to prove your worth. Every mistake leaving you terrified that some-some misogynist arsehole further up the food chain is going to use this to fuel an argument that you shouldn't be doing the job at all. Never mind that all the blokes you work with make the same mistakes over and over and never have to worry–"

"Okay, Bols! Christ, I get the picture. All men are bastards."

"All men are not bastards. But most men have a hell of a lot of trouble understanding that the culture we live in is designed to make things more difficult for women. We are fighting against centuries – _centuries_ , Guv – of prejudice. Human society has existed in recognisably civilised form for thousands of years, and how recently were women allowed to participate in electing their own leaders? A handful of decades. We've not just been taught to defer to men in our own lifetimes. We've been genetically hardwired to do so."

Hunt glared at her. "Seriously, Drakey, if this lecture's going on much longer then–"

"I have never," Alex interrupted, "needed you on-side with me more than I do right now. Okay? Just for half an hour. For Shaz. For the team." She sighed. "And if none of that matters to you – for the look of utter confusion on Wilcox's face when you demonstrate your solidarity with us flimsy, droopy, hormone-addled split-arses. How about that?"

He paused a moment, then he gave a nod. "Probably better if you do the talking. I mean – be a bit sexist, wouldn't it, if I didn't think my female DI can argue her corner?"

She cracked a smile. Two minutes to offer a crash course in feminism was hardly ideal, but Alex also happened to believe that Gene Hunt was more thoughtful and intelligent than he liked to let on. "Let's go and do this," she said.

They left the storeroom and walked the rest of the way to Wilcox's office. A rap, and Wilcox called admittance. Alex preceded Hunt into the room.

They both were brought up short. Standing in the corner, beyond the desk, Lord Scarman himself awaited them. Superintendent Wilcox waved them into the two chairs provided for guests.

"I hear you've been making waves, DI Drake," Wilcox said by way of an opening.

Alex arched a brow. "Making waves, sir?"

"I think you're aware of what I'm talking about."

"Am I being reprimanded?" she asked.

Wilcox looked like he was about to answer in the affirmative. Which was not how Alex had wanted the meeting to go, but Hunt stepped in before Wilcox could speak.

"If you want to reprimand DI Drake for her indignation regarding the competition," Hunt said, "then you'll have to reprimand me too, sir. With all due respect, you weren't there on Monday. You didn't see how obviously, how shamelessly, the rules were subverted. And how this damaged one of our own."

From his corner, Scarman said, " _I_ was there. Are you–"

Alex sensed danger and moved to avert it. "Exactly," she put in. "I've read your report, Lord Scarman. Every word. I know what matters to you. I know that you're acutely aware of the difficulties involved in being a minority in the Police Force, whether we're talking gender or ethnicity. You organised this competition to bring coppers together. To show, on a national stage, how much talent we have in our ranks. Not to show that big, strapping, confident, white males will always beat those around them."

Scarman gave a grunt of accedence. She was winning him over. She pressed the point.

"And part of the reason I was so outraged at the way the competition gave unfair advantage to a contestant who has never had to face prejudice in the workplace, who has never _learned_ to be hesitant? Well, sir, it's because I knew you were outraged too." She lifted her chin and told a white lie. "I saw your face, Lord Scarman, after that first heat in Westminster. You could see what was happening. And you didn't like it any more than I did. Any more than the other people in the hall that cried 'shame'. And there were a lot of them; we both heard it. And most of them had never even _met_ WPC Granger."

Scarman – as Alex had foreseen – reacted favourably to the suggestion that he was sensitive to discrimination. "It's true," he said, "I was uncomfortable with the implications."

Wilcox turned to Scarman in surprise. It seemed that the meeting was not proceeding as intended. He coughed, and then he said, "Well, er, playing devil's advocate for a moment – couldn't it be argued that this chap from Hanfield, couldn't it be said that he employed a fair strategy? He didn't break any rules, after all."

It was Hunt who said, "He didn't break any rules, sir, no. What he broke was the spirit of the competition. The very thing that was supposed to bring us together. Sort of undermines the whole point of it, doesn't it?"

Alex hid a smirk. Nice. The Guv was better at this than she'd have predicted. He'd paid attention during all of Scarman's pontificating speeches, this last couple of weeks. He knew which of Scarman's buttons to press.

Wilcox looked at his DCI and snorted. "DI Drake has you well trained, Hunt."

Alex cringed. Talk about lighting the blue touch paper.

The Guv, however, squared his shoulders and said, "DI Drake made a strong and compelling argument. To imply that I'm here, supporting her, for any reason other than that? Well, you must mean that either DI Drake is manipulative, or I'm gullible. Or both. Frankly, that's – all due respect, sir – a bit offensive."

Alex blinked and stared at Hunt. Wow. Okay, so Wilcox's retirement, only weeks away now, made him into something of a lame duck as superior officers went. But still. Either the Guv was more annoyed about Shaz than she'd realised, or he really, _really_ wanted to get into Alex's knickers.

"Now look here–" Wilcox spluttered.

"No, no," Scarman interrupted. "No, DCI Hunt – though it pains me to say this – makes a fair point. DI Drake's argument _is_ a compelling one. So what do you suggest, DI Drake? How do we fix this?"

Alex sat back. "Well, that would be up to you and the other competition officials, sir," she said, because it always paid to pander. "I'm sure you've already considered the options. If you're interested in my opinion, and the opinions of the other Met coppers I've talked to about this?" Scarman nodded. "Well, we all think that it's perfectly fine that the competition uses quick-fire buzzer rounds, because speed of thought and reaction should be a part of a contestant's overall success. No one's arguing that the buzzer rounds are inherently unfair. The only unfair part is the way incorrect answers go unpunished. Deliberately incorrect answers. Answers given purely to disrupt the flow and run down the clock."

Scarman nodded. His thoughts had been teased into place. "Yes, yes, some kind of penalty for incorrect answers – that'd stop someone from buzzing in every time. Dropped points, perhaps?"

"An excellent thought, sir," Alex said. "And possibly a similar penalty if the answer isn't given with sufficient alacrity. Sergeant Harris used up the last ten seconds on the clock by making us wait for an answer he knew perfectly well, just so there'd be no time for a further question. Perhaps the quiz-master could undertake a mental count of, say, three seconds and then, if the answer hasn't been forthcoming, treat the pause like an incorrect answer?"

Scarman nodded again. "Yes. Yes, that's do-able."

"Can I ask," Hunt said, "have there been any similar problems in the other heats – the regional ones around the country?"

Scarman lifted his chin. "A few," he acknowledged.

"Well," Alex said, "there's little we can do until the first round of heats are out of the way. It'd be unfair to change the rules until then. Can't move the goalposts like that."

Scarman nodded. "Yes. All right then, DI Drake, DCI Hunt. Leave it with me. I'll confer with the other competition officials, see what we can come up with."

They stood up. Before they left, Hunt turned to their superior officer and the pontificating Lord Scarman and made one last announcement. "For what it's worth, sirs? I'd like it acknowledged, here and now – and I'm sure DI Drake agrees wi' me on this – that WPC Granger performed in an outstanding way in her heat. She may not be progressing further in the competition, but I just wanted it said. I consider myself lucky to have an officer of her calibre on my team."

"Seconded," Alex said firmly.

"Yes," Wilcox said. "Yes, she did us proud. In fact, I think it's worth placing a note of commendation in her personnel file regarding her achievement."

Alex grinned. If this whole business yielded nothing else that was positive, a commendation for Shaz still made it all worthwhile.

Hunt opened the door to leave. Behind them, Lord Scarman said, "Oh, DI Drake?"

"Sir?"

"Best of luck this afternoon. I look forward to seeing you compete."

Alex nodded her thanks and left the office, but the reminder lay heavily in her gut. She'd managed to make herself quite high-profile in this competition now. Which meant that if she took a fall this afternoon, there'd be a whole lot of people watching her do so.

She wondered how much Josh Harris hated her right now.

"So how did I do?" Hunt asked her as they walked away.

"Rather bloody marvellous, actually."

He looked smug. "Not just a pretty face, am I?"

"No, you're...you're quite a bit more."

He waited a moment, then he said, "Fancy another go in the storeroom, then?"

Alex turned to him and rolled her eyes. "Guv – right now, I adore you. Truly. Wholeheartedly." He gave his 'pleased' smirk. She touched his arm and leaned in, and whispered, "Let's not do anything to change that."

~~~

In Westminster's Central Hall the crowd for the afternoon's heats gathered. Clive, after winning his own heat two days earlier, had shown up again. He'd brought along a selection of colleagues from the nearby Yard. Most of Fenchurch East CID had come to cheer Alex on. It was amusing to see the two groups of coppers mingling and chatting and finding common ground. Especially since the conversational topic of choice was how ridiculous it was that Lord Scarman thought that a competition like this would somehow engender team spirit.

There were two heats scheduled after lunch, and Alex was down for the second one. At least this time she could be pretty sure that another contestant's injury wouldn't postpone her appearance by several hours. She checked in with the officials, then she took a look at the stage. She realised her mouth had gone quite dry. The whole prospect of getting the rules changed had been a nice distraction, but the reality of her situation brought her back down to earth with a bump. She was going to have to sit up there in front of several hundred people, dozens of whom were expecting her to walk away with this competition.

But what if she couldn't complete the puzzle? What if her memory failed her for the mental agility round? What if she did as badly on the observation round as she'd done last weekend when she'd mocked up a version of it with Chris and Shaz?

What if the general knowledge questions she was given were era-specific? In the version of 1982 that she had originally experienced, she'd been pretty busy with the whole 'recover from being suddenly and violently orphaned' issue. Taking an interest in current affairs had been way down her agenda.

And what if this world decided that this afternoon would be a good time to start up again with all those strange and terrifying visions? She hadn't experienced anything like that for months now, but that didn't mean they were over and done with. And it'd be fitting, wouldn't it, for the world to wait until she was up on stage, vulnerable, the centre of attention, before it slung something weird and surreal her way?

Alex acknowledged that there was a very good chance she was about to make a proper idiot of herself. Panic surged. She found herself grabbing the Guv's arm and said, "Come with me."

"In my dreams, Bolly, every night."

"Not now, Gene. I have to get out of here."

"You're due on stage in an hour!"

"I'll be back by then. Please. I'm on the verge of a panic attack and I'd rather cope with that somewhere private."

Gene scowled at her a moment, then he nodded and led her out of the hall, down the steps to the foyer and through the main doors. They ducked off the main road outside and found a quiet spot in a side street, hidden from view, a little way south of the hall itself. Alex leaned against the wall and lowered her head, to force her breathing into something calmer than hyperventilation. Gene used the chance to light up one of his narrow, dark cigarillos.

"What's up wi' you?" he demanded when she'd straightened again. "You weren't in this state last week, were you?"

"No one expected me to do well on the assault course."

"And yet you did."

"Yeah. And now everyone's expecting me to do well in the mental rounds. Like I owe it to Shaz. And I feel that way too. And there's pressure. And for some reason I'm not responding well to that." She closed her eyes. "Oh, shit."

"It's just a stupid ruddy made-up competition. Doesn't mean anything."

"Then why are the whole team here, and all psyched about it?" She tut-tutted, then she said, "Give me a drag of that."

Gene handed her his cigarillo. "You don't smoke."

"I know. It's a filthy habit." Alex inhaled smoke, held it in her chest for a while, then exhaled steadily and competently. She handed the thing back.

"But you _have_ smoked," Gene deduced. "In the past."

Alex let the side of her mouth quirk upwards. "Not cigarettes," she said. "But I did go to college." She wrinkled her nose. "That tastes like crap."

Gene finished his own inhale and shrugged. "Want another go?"

"Yes please." The nicotine was calming her down. She inhaled, exhaled, then stuck her tongue out. "Yuck."

"Don't do that – spoils it. Gives me the horn when you smoke. Like Marlene Dietrich."

"Right. 'Cause nothing says 'sexy' like cancer-black lungs," she muttered. She managed a smile at Gene's annoyed look and changed the subject. "Oh, god. Why do I put myself through this stuff?"

"Why? Because no one else in the office had any chance of making a good show of it. You took one for the team, Bols. Not our fault you won your first round. Not our fault we all know you're brainy enough to do well this afternoon."

She arched a brow. "Another pep-talk?"

"Looked like you needed it."

He handed her his cigarillo and she took one last drag then slung it down and crushed the spark out of it. Alex exhaled slowly, watching the stream of smoke angle up and away from her. Gene watched too, eyes half-lidded and seductive.

"You all right?" he asked.

She gave a big sigh. "If I screw this up, it isn't because I'm not trying. Okay?"

"I know."

"And I'd give pretty much anything, right now, to know that I won't let you and the team down."

"I know."

Alex dry-swallowed. "And I really want to kiss you."

"I–" Gene frowned, shifted, arched his eyebrows. "Okay."

"Just for luck."

"Just for luck," he agreed, and he caught her about the waist and pulled her close, and he pressed his mouth to hers.

It was chaste, as kisses went: soft, sweet, and lacking any open-mouthed passion. When Alex pulled away she reached to touch his face, and pinched her lips together as if she could capture the sweetness and keep it inside for a little while longer.

"Nice," she whispered.

"Mmm."

"Thank you."

"You don't ever have to thank me for kissing you."

"I'd go for seconds, but..." She looked around at their surroundings. "Not really the time and place, is it?"

"Well, there's always later," he said.

"Let's hope it's celebration and not commiseration."

Gene narrowed his eyes. "Come on, Bolly-kecks. Arse in gear, now. Got a bit of an afternoon to get through before you can start fantasising about all the nasty things you want to do to me. First things first, eh?"

There seemed little point in berating him for his words, so she didn't bother. Whether or not Alex was about to make an idiot of herself in front of several hundred coppers, she was clever enough to recognise when she was no longer in a position to play it coy.

~~~

She wasn't quite sure which approach was better: looking out over that sea of faces and seeing them all as an amorphous blob of crowd, or looking out and distinguishing the individuals therein. The first option made it all feel less oppressive. The second option reminded her that she wasn't entirely friendless in this room.

The second option also told her she wasn't without enemies. Sitting towards the back was a familiar face, distinct because he had several inches in height on his neighbours. Was it paranoia to think that Josh Harris had specifically come here to watch her compete? Or was he just keeping an eye on all those he might potentially meet in his play-off? Surely it was more likely that he was friendly with one of the other coppers involved with the afternoon's heats, and he was here to cheer his mate on?

Whatever the reason, Alex told herself to put Harris's presence out of her mind and concentrate on her own performance. She let the crowd blur into the amorphous blob, and she breathed.

Assistant Commissioner Anthony Rutherford said, "And moving on to the red contestant. DI Alex Drake is distinguished within the Met as having achieved the highest rank of any female plain-clothes officer to date. She serves out of Fenchurch East's CID, where she's been based for a little over six months. Her interests include reading, the theatre, and music."

Polite applause. Alex cringed. Could her interests have sounded any more generic? Although it would have been tricky if she'd filled in the 'interests' section of her contest entry form with the truth: "Watching DVDs of 'Ally McBeal' and 'Sex and the City' in extended marathons, in an attempt to combat the habitual insomnia occasioned by her failed marriage and her constant need to overachieve in her career; reading the thrillers of Thomas Harris while silently and perversely cheering on the murderous sociopath rather than the law; trying to be a good mother to a currently non-existent daughter..."

Nope. Not really the kind of thing that'd go down well in a hall full of eighties coppers. Still, Alex kind of wished she'd put something unexpected in there. Hang-gliding, maybe. Or base-jumping. Had base-jumping been invented yet? Probably not.

She told herself to focus. Rutherford had just finished introducing the yellow contestant who was sitting to her left: a ginger guy in his mid-twenties with a pronounced overbite and a look in his eyes that suggested he was used to the world hurling insults and disdain his way. He sensed her looking and turned to give her a tight, nervous smile. This was the guy who hadn't managed to finish the assault course: his scorecard read zero.

The first round was announced, and the drape covering the bench at the front of the stage was removed. Time for some mental agility. The sequence of geometric shapes changed with each heat, of course. Alex took her time to settle this sequence in her mind: green triangle; yellow pentagon; blue square; black rectangle; white hexagon; red semi-circle.

She made up a mnemonic, quite automatically since it was the way her mind tended to work. First the shapes: "The Police Should Regularly Handle Semi-automatics." Not even remotely true, of course, but a single glance at Gene in the audience would remind her of the premise. It'd do the trick.

Once she'd repeated that a few times in her thoughts, she added another mnemonic for the colours: "Guv, your blue balls will recover." She rolled her eyes at herself, but she wasn't about to sacrifice her performance in the round for the sake of coming up with a less embarrassing mnemonic. She'd learned long ago that the most useful ones were the first ones that popped in to her brain. Okay, so this spoke volumes about the terrain her thoughts presently traversed, but at least no one ever had to hear about this but herself.

She was ready. She closed her eyes and mentally pictured the sequence in accordance with her memory-jogs. It was all there; she opened her eyes and checked. Good enough.

The drape was replaced. The questions started. Everyone got their first one right. 'Green', sitting to her right – a man around her own age with a prematurely thinning hairline and far too much cologne – got his second question wrong and dropped out of the round. Alex took her time when Rutherford asked her how many sides the shape in position five had, since she suspected that 'green' had messed up not because he lacked brain power but because he lacked composure. Position five equated to the word 'handle' in her mnemonic, which was a hexagon. "Six," she answered correctly.

On went the round. And on. 'Blue' finally messed up as the questions got trickier, leaving only herself and the ginger guy in the yellow corner. Back and forth. Alex had been right about one thing: this round was a lot easier to do when you were sitting in the audience.

"Red contestant: what colour is the block two places to the left of the block that is to the right of the six-sided block?" asked Rutherford.

Six-sided was position five. To the right was position six, the semi-circle. Two places to the left was position four – 'Guv, your blue balls...' – balls. A colour beginning with 'b' that wasn't 'blue' because she'd specifically worked that in to the mnemonic. Black. It was the black rectangle.

"Black," she answered. Her head was starting to spin. She was profoundly grateful that she hadn't answered with the word 'balls'. But she was right. She was still in the game.

'Yellow' was given a similarly convoluted question and – thank the lord for small mercies – finally messed up. The round was over. She'd won. Not only that, she was on maximum points. She darted a look at the scoreboard: blue on '10', green on '6', Alex's red card read a perfect '20' and yellow was on '6'. The audience applauded. Alex sought out her colleagues in their own little group, and smiled to see the various thumbs-ups and raised fists and other gestures of support.

So far so good.

~~~

The observation round consisted of another in-house training clip, this one demonstrating various methods in which a police truncheon could be used to subdue an aggressive assailant. Alex watched the clip as carefully as she could, but she knew this wouldn't be her strongest round. Her eyes tended to alight – and then obsess – on the oddest detail, while missing the obvious. She'd realised this last weekend when she'd undertaken some trial runs with Chris and Shaz.

For instance. The clip took place in a gym hall, on a series of laid-out cushioned mats, with a uniformed copper and a fake bad guy in a tracksuit. And what was she focusing on? The distant door, with a back-lit 'Exit' sign over it. The second part of the sign was broken and so the only lit letters were 'Ex'. What was the point of thinking about that?

And what was the point of thinking about how pointless it was to think about that?

And...yep, that was all she got. The clip was done and dusted. Alex rolled her eyes at herself and hoped she wasn't about to look stupid.

As it turned out she managed one of her individual questions and none of the buzzer-questions. Two more points accumulated. Could have been worse, but not by much. And to her left, 'yellow' had stormed the round and was playing catch-up.

The scores stood as follows: blue on '14', green on '8', Alex was up to '22' and yellow – after beginning the afternoon's rounds with a big fat zero – was already up to '16'.

At least that was her weakest round out of the way, she considered, trying to look on the bright side. Time for the puzzles. A group of contest officials brought out the covered trays and set them down on the desks. The contestants, Alex included, stood up and pushed their chairs back.

Rutherford said, "On the Perspex sheet below the cover is a grid of dots. Use the marker pen provided to draw four straight lines without removing the marker from the surface of the sheet. These lines should pass through every single dot. If you need to erase an incorrect attempt, there are cloths which you can use to do so."

Alex frowned. This sounded suspiciously like Scheerer's 'Nine Dot Problem'. It was a classic example of the Gestalt approach to problem-solving: something that was used to demonstrate the idea of 'functional fixedness' in psychology. The way most human minds fail to 'think outside the box'. She'd learned this at college.

She told herself not to get ahead of herself. Rutherford asked all contestants whether they understood the criteria for successfully solving the puzzle. All acceded. The officials removed the covers from the tray.

In the centre of a plastic sheet was a grid of nine dots arranged three by three in a square:

o o o

o o o

o o o

This _was_ Scheerer's problem. Alex took up her marker. She needed to do this fast, in case someone else in the heat had also recognised the puzzle...though maybe not too fast, in case it looked like she was cheating? Of course, most people attempting the problem failed to find a solution because they assumed that the lines had to stay within the square formed by the dots.

Alex drew a straight line beginning at the bottom left dot, moving diagonally up to the top right. She then drew a horizontal line passing through the whole of the top row, then beyond it, as if to an additional dot to the left of the grid. She then drew a diagonal line heading 'south-east' which took in two more dots and finished below the bottom right dot. Then she completed the puzzle with a vertical fourth and final line which intersected all remaining dots and finished at the top right.

It took her about ten seconds or so. She put her marker down and stepped back. Her designated official checked the solution and then covered the puzzle, and nodded at Rutherford.

Alex sat down and wondered how soon her fellow competitors would work out that they needed to employ a bit of lateral thinking. Fenchurch – and the extended group that now seemed to be supporting her – applauded generously. She looked for Gene's eyes. He was pouting his approval.

Well, at least if he ended up getting bored with the wait, it wouldn't be her fault.

~~~

Following the intelligence round the scores were: blue on '16', green on '12', Alex way ahead on '32' and yellow on '22'. She'd opened up a ten point gap, in spite of the mess she'd made of the observation round. If she arsed this up now she'd only have herself to blame.

Rutherford announced the general knowledge round, and the contestants prepared for their individual questions. Alex did some steadying breathing exercises as 'blue' and 'green' both got their first questions right. Then Rutherford addressed her:

"Red contestant – in which country is Timbuktu?"

Alex felt a small sense of relief and answered, "It's in Mali." Correct.

Rutherford moved on to 'yellow' who also got his question right. Back to the blue contestant. Blue didn't know who wrote 'Finnegan's Wake'. Green did know what the young of eels were called.

"Red contestant," said Rutherford, "in which year was NATO formed?"

Shit. Post-Second World War, definitely. Pre-fifties, Alex thought. She took a guess. "1947?"

"1949," Rutherford corrected her. Alex sagged.

Yellow answered correctly that the commentator 'Ted Lowe' was famous for snooker coverage. And it was time for the quick-fire round. Two minutes were on the clock. The only contestant who had any hope of catching up was 'yellow' and he didn't seem the type to storm the buzzer in the way Harris had done during Shaz's heat. Alex decided to play it cautious and to revise this approach if her lead seemed to be diminishing.

It turned out that the round was fairly even. All four contestants buzzed in with answers they knew; no one was employing the 'buzz anyway' tactic. 'Blue' was well-informed when it came to music, 'green' was the go-to guy for sports, and between Alex and her ginger-haired neighbour in the yellow corner they tended to mop up the rest. By the end of the round, Alex was kind of wishing that the competition was not about individual performance, but rather that of the group.

The round finished with the scores as follows: blue on '24', green on '20', Alex on '42' and yellow on '34'.

She'd done it. She'd done it with quite a bit to spare. Rutherford tried to make the closing announcement, but the applause and cheering from the audience drowned him out. Towards the back of the hall, movement caught Alex's eye. Harris had stood up and was making his way down the row of seats, upsetting the people he was moving in front of. He'd timed his departure deliberately; he'd wanted Alex to see him. The self-involved arsewipe.

Rutherford called an end to the heat and the contestants were able to leave the stage. Before they all meandered off to rejoin their own groups of colleagues, Alex tried to be magnanimous in victory. "Hey listen," she said to the other three competitors, "you ever want to form a pub-quiz team? I think we've got all the bases pretty much covered." The comment seemed to break the ice that had existed with the tension of the competition. It was smiles and handshakes all around.

The ginger guy said to her, "How did you manage to do that puzzle so fast?"

Alex gave a shrug and answered half-truthfully. "I've seen that kind of thing before. They try to trick you into assuming there's rules that don't exist. It's all about thinking outside the box." Her fellow competitor nodded. "What's your name?" Alex asked. "Sorry, I forgot all the introductions – I was a bit nervous. I can't keep calling you 'yellow' in my head."

He grinned, showing his unfortunate overbite. "Keith," he told her. "PC Keith Fuller, Lewisham."

"Alex Drake," she offered. "How come you didn't finish the assault course, Keith?"

Fuller looked rueful. "Slipped off that bloody wooden beam, didn't I?" he said. "Fell badly, cracked my head on the way down, knocked myself out for a minute."

"God! I hope they got you out of the water good and fast. Was there a concussion?"

"Yup. Tell you what, this team-building stuff? We should get danger money."

By that time the Fenchurch crowd were moving in to congratulate her. She gave Fuller one last smile and let her colleagues sweep her away. Shaz threw her arms around Alex. In spite of everything Shaz seemed to be as delighted about Alex's success as she might have been about her own. Chris then hugged her, telling her she was, "Brilliant. Bloody brilliant. Completely brilliant. Boss. Um, ma'am."

When Chris let her go, there was a small gap in front of her, at the other side of which stood the Guv. It seemed as if none of her other colleagues wanted to step in and do more hugging until they'd waited for their alpha male to do his thing.

Alex gave Gene a small smile. "Good enough?"

"You really arsed up that observation round," he said.

"Oh bugger off, Guv."

He smirked at that, and she grinned, and everyone else chuckled. Then he stepped in close and put his arms around her, and he squeezed. "Proud o' you, Bols," he murmured in her ear. "Don't know why you got yourself in such a state."

She turned to murmur something back, not quite sure what it was going to be but aware that her intentions were flirtatious. Only then, over Gene's shoulder, she noticed Lord Scarman approaching the group. "Scarman," she whispered. "Better make nice."

Gene pulled apart from her and then stepped aside to allow Scarman to congratulate Alex. Lord Scarman remarked on her enthusiastic entourage. She made sure to tell him that some of her supporters were friends she'd made during the course of the competition. When PC Keith Fuller called over to her as he left the hall, offering her the best of luck in the play-offs – rather sporting of him when he stood defeated in his own heat – Alex decided that, politically speaking, the afternoon probably couldn't have gone better.

It was almost enough to make her think that some special kind of celebration was in order.

~~~

Another party night at Luigi's. This one was busy, since the Fenchurch East lot had invited along Clive and some of his Yard colleagues who'd been at the Central Hall. It was a Wednesday night, so the restaurant was commandeered as the Met's own exclusive function room just as soon as the last pair of diners had paid their bill and sidled out.

And this time, alas, Alex didn't have a good excuse to take an early dart and arrange a rendezvous with the man whose attitudes belonged in the prehistoric – give or take a crash course in feminism – and whose face and hands were now firmly established in her naughtier daydreams.

She sat at the bar, watching her colleagues party. The tune was something by Madness, and half of the lads from CID were trying to emulate the conga-style dance of the band – dip forward, arch back, and so on – and not doing a very good job, though they were having a ball. It was fun to watch, anyway. It was always fun, watching people you cared about having a good time.

In fact it was kind of a relief, after the events of last autumn, to be able to acknowledge that whatever this world was, she cared about the people within it.

Someone took the seat beside her and she smiled and turned, expecting to see Gene. Instead she saw Clive: the man she'd originally christened 'Mr Hill-Walker', and who had become an unexpected and welcome ally in the battle to right the wrong that had been done to Shaz.

"I'll give your lot this much," Clive called to her over the party noise. "They know how to throw a bash."

"They like to work hard and play hard," she agreed. Which wasn't entirely true, since half of them had a tendency to forget about the 'work hard' part of the equation. "I'm just glad I managed to give them something to cheer. After what happened with Shaz, it would've been a bit of an anticlimax to fizzle out of my own heat."

Clive grinned at her. He had attractive lines at the corner of his eyes, and a nicely weathered and outdoors-y face. "I don't think anyone in this room anticipated that happening. Not for a minute."

"No one except me, perhaps."

"Well, for what it's worth? I'm hoping we're not drawn in the same play-off heat. Not sure I'd stand a chance."

"Oh, rubbish. You walked your heat. I was there, remember? I saw you."

"I didn't solve the puzzle in ten seconds flat."

"I got lucky there. My puzzle was familiar. I may not be so lucky next time."

Clive made a 'thoughtful' face. "Oh, I'm hoping you are. See, that's the other reason I hope we're kept apart in the play-offs. If we both manage to get through to the finals, I have an excuse to see you again."

Alex shot him a glance. "You're getting dangerously close to flirting with me, Clive."

"Would it be dangerous?" His eyes glinted. "I s'pose it could be, seeing as how your boss is glaring at the pair of us from the corner by that mural."

Alex glanced over to the wall with the mural, and saw Gene watching the two of them steadily. "He's good at glaring," she acknowledged.

The Madness song faded, and the Human League kicked in. 'Don't You Want Me?' Well, Alex mused, it wasn't as if 'wanting' was the problem-issue.

Clive asked, "And, er, does he have any reason to glare? I mean, am I stepping on his toes, talking to you?"

Alex gave a snort of laughter. "Good grief, no. I talk to whomever I want."

"Even when it turns out that the bloke you're talking to is trying very hard to flirt? Without, you know, looking like too much of a pillock?"

Alex propped her chin on one hand and favoured Clive with her full attention. "Are you asking me whether I mind about your flirting? Or are you asking whether I'm involved with my superior officer?"

"More like, is he going to punch me on the nose if I ask you to dance?"

She considered the scenario. "He probably wouldn't punch you," she said. "Since that would be far too obvious a demonstration of how he feels about me."

Clive arched a brow. "Oh, it's like that, is it? Complicated?"

"Complicated," she agreed.

"So would he come over and cut in, if we danced?" Clive went on. "The old gentleman's excuse me? See, that way I could ask you to dance and pretend I'm just trying to play cupid. Even though really I just want to dance with you."

She was being charmed. She couldn't help it. Alex gave a chuckle and shook her head. "Gene wouldn't cut in. He likes to play his cards close to his chest when it comes to anything personal and emotional and messy. Cutting in would require him to do a one-eighty in his attitude. Totally out of character. Plus?" She leaned in closer and said, _sotto voce_ , "He's really not a gentleman."

Clive held her eyes a moment, then he gave a rueful smile and looked down at the surface of the bar. "You aren't going to dance with me, are you?"

"I think not."

"Not even to make him jealous?"

"Dear god, certainly not for that reason!" She tut-tutted. "You know, I grew out of puberty quite some time ago."

Clive rolled his eyes. "Oh, you girls and your emotional maturity." He lifted his glass and toasted her. "To you, Alex. And to hope."

She returned the salute. "Hope?"

"Mmm. That the next time I ask a gorgeous, clever and accomplished woman to dance with me, she isn't head over heels in very complicated love with another man."

Alex frowned. "Who said anything about love?"

"Oh, this is all about animal attraction and good honest lust, is it?" He looked exasperated.

"I'm not sure it's any of your business," Alex replied, feeling herself clam up. Shut down.

"Sorry. No, you're right, it isn't. But in case the last week has seen us establish what might be considered the beginnings of a friendship? And on the off chance that you're interested in the viewpoint of a third party? One that isn't biased in their perspective, like, say, your colleagues at Fenchurch might be?" He left the statements hanging and waited for her to give him the go-ahead on saying any more.

"What?" Alex invited, feeling just a little bit sullen.

"Seems to me," Clive said, "that whatever's going on between you and your DCI has yet to happen. There's way too much tension for this to be further along. And I'm thinking that if it really was just a bit of good honest lust, you'd have been happy to get it out of your systems a while ago. I mean, you're both adults, you're both, I'm guessing, unattached. Lust is easy. It's love that makes it more complicated. And you said yourself that it was complicated."

Alex stared at Clive. "I'm confused," she eventually said. "I thought you were flirting with me. Now you seem to be trying to fix me up with my superior officer."

He gave a shrug. "I flirted because I like you. You were nice about how the flirting wasn't going to get me anywhere. That made me like you a bit more."

There was some logic there, Alex supposed. Though at the same time she was growing suspicious that Clive was actually the product of some buried part of her own subconscious. A construct that she had unwittingly introduced to this world in order to talk some sense into herself, perhaps?

No. She'd moved past the whole 'good morning constructs' phase. Whoever or whatever the people around her turned out to be, she wasn't going to write them off.

So she sighed and said, "Well, I appreciate your perspective, Clive. Not sure it's all that comforting to know I'm so easy to read–"

Clive smirked. "Personally I think it's reassuring."

"Reassuring how?"

"Well, I mean, if you're under the impression that it _isn't_ all pretty obvious, and hasn't been obvious since that practice run at the assault course? I was there, remember? I saw you two together. Crikey, I watched him rubbing your hands, Alex."

"Why is that reassuring?" she asked, not quite following.

"Just, maybe you aren't as much of a genius as you seemed this afternoon." He widened his eyes and smirked, but there was nothing malicious in his manner.

"Ah. You've decided to tease me instead of flirt with me," she deduced.

Clive gave a shrug. "I could've gone off in a huff instead. Still. Bit old for that. And it isn't like you told me anything I didn't already know."

"So why ask in the first place?"

"Because, Alex Drake, you are gorgeous, and clever, and accomplished."

She smiled at the compliment and nudged him with her shoulder. "And if it weren't for the complication," she told Clive, "I'd totally be dancing with you right now."

He took the consolation-compliment with good grace and withdrew, after they'd agreed to stay in touch and be there, if the draw allowed it, to support each other during their play-off rounds. Alex turned back to the space being used for dancing. The Human League had long since faded out, and – thank you nineteen eighty-two – the Birdie Song was blaring from the sound system. Chris was trying to teach everyone the dance. Ray was staggering about, trying to join in, always about four beats behind everyone else. Alex supposed it was sort of charming. As far as 'charming' was achievable, given that the Birdie Song would always and ever be an assault on the senses.

"So what did he want?" came Gene's gruff voice in her ear. He settled on the stool Clive had vacated.

Alex hid a smile and glanced his way. She shrugged a shoulder. "We were just talking."

"Looked like he was trying to chat you up."

"Well, he asked me to dance."

"Oh yeah?" Gene sniffed, and waited as Luigi set another pint of beer before him. He took a good drink, then he said, "So why didn't you?"

She leaned against Gene's upper arm and said, "Clive's a very nice man. An attractive man. I might even have been tempted. But you know, something was missing."

"Like what?"

"Didn't make my toes curl," she confided.

Gene leaned in too, and said into her ear, "And what about now?"

"Now? They're curling harder than Raymondo's perm."

He pulled back and gave her a considering look. "Has the day arrived, then, Bolly?"

Alex waited for the reservations to kick in. It was what usually happened. But for some reason the reservations weren't there. Maybe something about the last week or so had accentuated the positive.

"Feels about right, doesn't it?" she said. "You went above and beyond, this morning, just to support me. I did my best for you and the team this afternoon. And..." She used the tip of her finger to trace a pattern on the counter of the bar. "Well, I suppose I've been thinking about kissing you for a good eight hours straight now."

He nodded, then he looked around at the cavorting masses. "Course, it'd be a bit obvious if we just left the party together. Right now."

It seemed that Gene was as unwilling as she was to make their developing relationship public knowledge. She sighed. "There is that. I can't leave, since I'm the reason everyone's celebrating. And you can't leave because, well, you're the Guv."

"Plus, last time I left this bar early after you'd propositioned me–"

"Let's not go there, Gene."

"Hmm."

Alex gave another sigh. "So we're stuck here for the time being."

"Yeah. Bollocks."

They turned to scan the party. The Birdie Song had given way to Olivia Newton John's 'Physical' and Chris was doing a dance that seemed to consist of muscle-poses.

"Oh, god," Gene muttered in despair.

"Yeah," Alex agreed. Chris tied his necktie around his forehead like a sweatband and mugged it up on the dance floor. "Okay, that's it. Three minutes. The ladies. Let's go and have a snog, at least, eh?"

"You're on," Gene said, and he was careful not to watch her as she slid down from her stool and walked away.

~~~

The ladies' toilet at Luigi's restaurant was small and oddly homely. There was a single lavatory stall. Opposite the stall door was a stretch of counter that housed the sole basin. At the right hand end of the counter was a wall-mounted paper-towel dispenser that had been empty for as long as Alex had frequented this restaurant. For hand-drying purposes there was provided, instead, a stack of folded hand-towels – barely larger than flannels, really – that were neatly laundered, and a much nicer choice than the institutional green paper-towels.

Behind the basin was a pump-dispenser of hand soap, and a similar dispenser for hand lotion: rather posh for an otherwise unpretentious restaurant toilet, but also indicative of the way Luigi liked to make a fuss of his female clientele. A large circular mirror was fixed to the wall above the basin, and tucked half under the counter was an upholstered stool, as if Luigi thought that the refreshing of lipstick would go easier if women were able to sit down to do their feminine make-up business.

The door from the restaurant itself – actually from a small side passage off the main room – opened in the narrow space to the side of the stall. As Alex waited beside the basin, half perched on the stool, she decided that the design couldn't really be any better for the context of a snatched secret tryst. Anyone coming through that door would be unable to see past the stall wall until they moved around it. And of course the only other person in the restaurant tonight who might come through that door was Shaz. Who was, quite possibly, the only person Alex would have trusted not to overreact completely if she happened to walk in on the Guv and the Ma'am in a bit of a clinch.

Alex breathed deep and tried not to joggle her knee impatiently. Still, it felt like she'd been kept waiting for this for a very, very, _very_ long time.

The door swung open, bringing with it music-and-party noise. Alex caught her breath. She stood up and waited for Gene to appear around the corner of the cubicle.

Gene Hunt was looking remarkably like Shaz Granger on this party-night at Luigi's.

"Oh, ma'am!" Shaz said cheerfully. "Didn't know you were in here. Are you, er...?" She gestured at the lavatory stall.

Alex unclenched her back molars and said, "No, I'm done. Go ahead, Shaz."

Shaz sidled past her and into the stall, and pushed the door to. Alex wondered about leaving, then she figured that she should probably demonstrate a better reason for having been in the ladies than just standing around and passing the evening, so she ran the water in the basin and rinsed her hands.

"Great party, isn't it!" Shaz called.

"Lovely," Alex agreed, though it took some effort to force the word out.

"I saw Clive talking to you earlier," Shaz went on. "Bit of a spark, is there?"

"Oh, he's nice enough, but no, not really. Not for me, anyway."

"Well, you can't force these things to happen."

Alex turned the tap off and took up one of the little hand towels. She moved to the end of the counter to make room for Shaz, and to keep one eye on the door. Not that she anticipated Gene coming through it, if he'd noticed Shaz come in here ahead of him.

"So is there any news on when your play-off heats will begin?" Shaz asked.

Alex frowned. "Nothing definite." She tossed her hand towel in the laundry bin underneath the end of the counter. "They'll make the draw to divide up the sixteen winners into four heats on Friday, and it looks like the assault course rounds will be early next week."

The sound of a toilet flush, and Shaz came out of the stall. "Let's hope the weather's a bit kinder to you, next time," she said as she washed her hands.

Alex gave a tight smile. "I'm pretty sure that if I'm competing out at Dorking, the rules state that it has to be tipping down."

Shaz dried her hands and then indulged in a squirt of lotion. She looked to Alex as she smoothed the lotion into her skin, expecting Alex to lead the way out of the ladies.

There wasn't much else Alex could do. She moved around the stall to the door and pushed it open, and together with Shaz she returned to the restaurant proper.

The Guv was leaning against the bar within sight of the passageway which led to the toilets. She caught his eye as she and Shaz moved back towards the dance floor. The music was Kraftwerk's 'The Model', and Shaz was pulling her arm and encouraging her to join in the dancing with her.

_'Sorry,'_ she tried to send telepathically. _'Later, then.'_

The Guv scowled. She thought it was one of agreement, but it was hard to tell since it was clouded with a good deal of frustration.

~~~

She danced for a while, since it was fun and it was a reasonable distraction from the pressing urges of her libido. Also because she sensed Gene watching every move of her body, and for some reason she really liked that. It seemed to make her want to emphasise every sway of her hips, every jiggle of her bosom. Alex suspected that she was well on the way to becoming a wanton hussy.

After half an hour or so of this exercise, she took a break and went to get a drink. It was getting on for ten o'clock by then, and she was hoping that people would start to drift off. Once that began to happen she could think about heading upstairs to her flat. She could at least claim that it had been a tiring and stressful afternoon.

At the bar Luigi filled up her wine glass. She asked for a glass of water too, since she'd been dancing for a while, and because she didn't want to end up completely toasted by the end of the evening. Gene Hunt had form when it came to withholding intimacy on the grounds of inebriation.

She looked around to see where everyone was. The Guv was sitting under the mural again. Ray and Terry shared his table and were involved in an animated discussion about something – probably football – that Gene was watching like he might watch a tennis match. As if he sensed her scrutiny, he lifted his eyes to meet hers across the restaurant. The look in those eyes burned. It was something of a surprise when her clothing wasn't instantly scorched to ashes.

Alex drew in a deep breath and sighed, but there was little she could do without being obvious, and they'd both acknowledged that being obvious was to be avoided. So she tried to distract herself again. There were plenty of people here who'd probably be worth talking to. She turned away from the bar, holding her wine, and found Clive not far from her, in discussion with Thaddeus Jones and another guy from the Yard. They welcomed her into their conversation, and Alex was thus able to pass a few more minutes without too much in the way of clock-watching.

She drifted on from Clive and Thad to another group, and another. She made some friends, accepted a lot of congratulations, was given numerous tips and advice for doing better in any number of the competition rounds. And she did her level best not to keep looking around the restaurant to find out where Gene was and what he was doing. See if he was as interested in keeping track of her whereabouts too.

The numbers at the party began to thin out after half an hour of this socialising. Luigi sensed the party starting to wind down, and he changed the cassette tape on the sound system for one with slower tunes. It might have been a nice thought, were there more than two women currently in the restaurant, one of whom was spoken for and the other of whom was not really interested in slow-dancing. Not with any of the men who'd be likely to ask her, anyway.

Alex popped to the ladies while Shaz and Chris were all snuggled up together and she could therefore be sure of some solitude. She didn't expect Gene to follow her since she was pretty sure he hadn't noticed her head this way. In truth she was wracked with tension and anticipation, and she really needed to wear down a few more minutes without making it obvious that that was what she was doing.

She used the quiet to assess her own state of body and mind. She was tipsy, certainly, since she'd had a few glasses of wine, but she was nowhere near as drunk as these evenings usually left her. Alex placed a hand over her mouth and exhaled then sniffed. Her dinner had consisted of a bowl of pasta courtesy of Luigi before the party had got going, but there didn't seem to be any lingering onion or garlic smells on her breath.

She checked her underarms. She'd been warm this evening with the dancing, but earlier on she'd had chance to shower between finishing work and coming down to the restaurant. Her body was a bit lived in right now, but far from unpleasant.

She'd do. Of course, if Gene was planning on sitting down here and holding court for another hour yet, until Luigi's plaintive pleas to let him close bore fruit, then she'd have plenty of time for another shower and change.

Alex glanced at her watch. It was almost a quarter to eleven. She sat down on the stool and sighed, then she indulged in a few time-passing tricks she knew. She quoted a couple of Shakespeare's famous soliloquies out loud. Then she hummed and mumbled her way through Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' since it was one of the lengthier songs she knew very well. Then she moved on to poetry. Yeats; Eliot; Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Then Alex sighed again and said, out loud, "Alex Drake, you are beyond bloody ridiculous."

She returned to the restaurant. Shaz and Chris were just leaving, calling their goodbyes. There were only half a dozen or so coppers left in the restaurant by now. Alex couldn't see the Guv among them, and assumed he'd gone to the gents. She decided she could get away with calling it a night; everyone here would inform Gene that she'd gone up to her flat when he asked. So she exchanged a few words with the lads, suffered a couple of drunken and sloppy kisses on her cheek – they did seem to be genuinely chuffed with her success that afternoon – and then she waved a good-night to Luigi and headed out into the cold night air.

On reaching the pavement level, she looked around. Chris and Shaz were getting into the back of a minicab – Shaz was quite strict with Chris about drink-driving – and there were a couple of the lads staggering over the road to pick up their cars from the Fenchurch East car-park.

It didn't take her long to realise what was missing. The Quattro. Which tended to occupy the parking spot that was right outside the restaurant. No one else from Fenchurch East would have dared to park there. But right now there was a fairly obvious absence-of-car.

Alex frowned. Had he buggered off home, after all that? Miffed about the near-miss in the ladies, perhaps, then extra-miffed about being made to watch her dance afterwards? Was Gene Hunt likely to punish her by pouting his way home alone, rather than waiting to see whether the evening would yield the prize he'd coveted?

It didn't _seem_ all that likely. And yet here she was, standing in the street outside Luigi's, and the Quattro was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to her, in that moment, that today was a Wednesday. A bloody, buggering Wednesday; a day that was all but cursed. No wonder she and Gene had missed out on their snog. No wonder he'd got fed up with waiting and gone home.

She'd just about convinced herself that the entire evening had fallen apart when the small, stubborn voice that was her innate optimism pointed out that Gene Hunt had been waiting for this day as long as she had, and it seemed very unlikely that he'd stand her up when he knew he was on a promise.

So where was the bloody Quattro?

Maybe he was just moving it, she thought. Maybe he didn't want to make it obvious to the stragglers leaving the restaurant that he was still in the area, even though he'd left the party a while ago.

Actually, yes. That seemed possible. Which meant that she only needed to go upstairs and wait.

Fine. She'd do that.

She walked along to the side door and unlocked it, and she slipped inside. She passed the door to the right which led through to Luigi's own ground floor flat. She mounted the stairs and heard herself humming. What was that tune? Good grief, she was actually humming Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'. Just because the lyrics to the chorus were resonating a bit. Alex suspected that almost six months of celibacy hadn't been all that good for her.

She got to the top of the first flight and swung around on the banister to take the second. She didn't stop humming–

"Well you took your time," Gene said.

She started, stumbled on the first step and ended up back on the mini-landing that separated the two flights of stairs.

"How long have you been there?" she demanded.

He shrugged and stood up. "About fifteen ruddy minutes. Feels like a lot longer. I thought you'd already left to come back here."

"Where's the Quattro?"

"Round the corner. Far enough away to be discreet."

"Oh." She told her feet to get working, and managed to climb the stairs. "Good."

Gene narrowed his eyes at her. "You, er, changed your mind, then?" He looked like he expected nothing less.

Alex reached the top of the stairs, where he'd stood to one side to let her past. She stopped beside him and considered his face. "Changed my mind?" She raised an eyebrow. "My mind has been stuck on one single, delicious thought for most of the day." She frowned. "And quite a lot of the preceding days. And if you're going to deny me now then there's a good chance–"

"Oh, shut up, will you?" Gene said. He pushed her back into the partition wall beside her front door. "Sometimes 'yes' or 'no' does the job."

Alex let her head fall back against the wall, and she relished the sensation of Gene's body leaning into her. She gave a smile and a sigh. "Do you want to make love, Gene?" she asked. Challenging him to a 'yes' or 'no' answer; challenging him to argue about her choice of language.

He glared. "Yes. Do you?"

"Yes," she said.

Their lips met in a kiss that was urgent, and passionate, and – as it turned out – that also rendered even the most direct choices of language redundant.

~~~


	4. Chapter 4

Two days later, Alex sat at her desk trying to figure something out.

Wednesday night had been fun. Great, even: a night of passionate lovemaking with someone she might have real feelings for. Not, of course, that she'd risked making any declarations. But the way their eyes had locked as they'd moved together had been suggestive of a whole lot more than 'a leg over'.

Thursday had been awkward, but in a nice way. They'd gone about the business of the day, and if they'd occasionally caught the other's eye and remembered bodies sliding and harmonised moans of pleasure, and both of them had then flushed and had to look away? Well. That was all part of the settling-in phase to a new relationship. Sexy secrets could be quite the turn-on. The awkwardness certainly hadn't diminished any of Gene's enthusiasm, since he'd followed her up to the flat on the Thursday evening without hesitation. The urgency in his desire had been, if anything, more potent than the night before. And it had been nice to know that the whole thing wasn't going to peter out now that they'd ticked the 'we should have sex' box.

And now Friday. Which had begun very like Thursday. And which had then changed.

Alex couldn't work out how or why.

The draw for the play-off heats of _The Krypton Factor_ competition had taken place that morning and the results had been distributed to the sixteen remaining Met-based competitors. Alex had been glad to note that she'd been drawn apart from Clive; less glad to note that in her heat she was going up against Josh Harris, Mr Strapping: he of the arms like tree-trunks and the underhand buzzer technique. The rest of the office thought this was great, of course. Here was the chance for some direct payback on Shaz's behalf. But Alex had the feeling that triumphing over Josh Harris and thus rendering him chastised and humbled was the kind of thing that would only happen in a screenplay: a nice morality-tale, perhaps, where the villain gets hoisted by his own petard. Real life – or, come to that, not-quite-real life – simply did not work that way.

Along with the release of the play-off draw information, a competition update had been published. This detailed the changes to the rules for the indoor rounds. There would be penalties incurred for time-wasting or incorrect answers during the buzzer rounds. No one had been surprised by the update. Rumours had been circulating for days, thanks to Alex and her groundswell of popular opinion. But it was good to have it in black and white.

Her next competition day would be Tuesday next week. All four physical fitness rounds at Dorking were to be held that afternoon. Alex imagined that there was no possible way she could expect to beat Harris on the assault course, even though her colleagues all seemed to think that her victory was assured. She'd looked to the Guv for a more tempered assessment of the situation, and that was the moment when she'd realised something had changed.

No more coy glances. No more flushed faces. No more, _'I know what you're thinking and I'm thinking it too.'_ Gene Hunt was no longer acting like the man who'd shared her bed two nights running.

Indeed, by Friday afternoon he was acting like a man who could hardly stand to be around her.

Twice, she'd got up from her desk to go into his office – something she'd done several times a day for over six months – and he'd responded by getting up and marching out of CID, as if he'd remembered somewhere else he had to be. Alex had been left standing near his doorway feeling foolish, watching him depart, and when she'd tried to tell him she needed a word he'd simply said, "It'll have to wait," over his shoulder.

When their gazes caught, he was distant, almost like he didn't even recognise her. And when, that afternoon, the usual team piled into the Quattro in order to attend a crime scene – a delivery lorry for a supermarket had taken a mini-roundabout too fast, turned itself over on its side and then been subjected to the gleeful scavenging of a group of local layabouts – the Guv had been snippy with pretty much everyone.

So here she now sat at her desk, with time marching on towards six o'clock, wondering what the hell had happened. Something had to have changed, to trigger this shift in mood. Had someone said something to the Guv? Something that had unnerved him? Some comment about him and the Ma'am? It was possible, she supposed. She knew he didn't want their newfound intimacy known to the CID team. There were no hard and fast rules about chain-of-command fraternisation in the Met, but it was still frowned upon, and if a superior officer – like, say, Superintendent Wilcox – felt he could demonstrate that a personal relationship was having a detrimental effect on the function of a department then a transfer would be organised.

Alex had been working on the assumption that this was the reason the Guv wanted to keep things under wraps. The CID lads were not known for their discretion. If the team knew then the rest of the station would soon know too. And there were plenty of officers within the station who did not count Gene Hunt among their friends.

So maybe it was that. Maybe he was overcompensating. Someone had said something like, "You've been in a good mood this last couple of days, Guv. So's DI Drake, thinking about it..." And he'd felt the need to ensure that no one would work out why.

Or maybe this was just delayed reaction. Alex had always predicted that if they ever gave in and had sex with each other, the Guv would do the typical masculine thing afterwards. Backing off; playing it down. He'd surprised her yesterday by not behaving like an insecure arse. Perhaps his instincts had taken a while to catch-up.

Then again, perhaps she'd done something herself. Or said something: something that had upset him. Without even realising, had she managed to behave in a way he hadn't liked? Smiled at him too long? Looked at him too lasciviously? Had she demonstrated some possessiveness – or even, horror of horrors, tenderness – towards him that had yanked him out of his post-coital amiability and made him shut down on her?

God, she didn't know. And as the afternoon progressed and the standoffishness increased, she was ever more certain that she was going to be sleeping alone that night.

The working day ended and the team moved over the road to Luigi's. Alex waited to see whether the shift in environment, from a place of work to a place of play, might make the difference. Alas, Gene went out of his way that night to make sure he was never available for a one-on-one. It all seemed deliberate. Alex watched for her opportunity, but it never came along. So she drank, and tried to laugh and joke with those colleagues who were still talking to her – most of whom seemed blissfully oblivious to the undercurrents between herself and Gene – and the evening ticked away.

When Gene left the restaurant to head home, he made sure he left at the same time as a group of others. Alex, by this point, was too annoyed to be upset. She rolled her eyes and went up to her flat, and she told herself that two nights of competent and enjoyable sex did not a love affair make.

She went to sleep waiting for the phone to ring, and she hated herself for it.

~~~

Shaz and Chris came around at the weekend, as they'd done the weekend before. Shaz told her it was important to keep her primed and ready for the competition days next week. It was as good a distraction as any. The three of them practised the observational round and some general knowledge, and then they went over to the station and availed themselves of the small gym there. Alex kept the work-out gentle enough that there'd be no aches and pains the next day. She just wanted to maintain a fitness level and elasticity in her muscles that would stand her in good stead for Tuesday.

That evening, as the rain came down outside, Chris went to bring his car around from the station car-park. While they were waiting for him, tucked inside the side door onto the street, Shaz said to Alex, "Ma'am – tell me if I'm out of order or anything, but I'm worried. What's going on with you and the Guv?"

Sweet and insightful Shazza. Irritatingly insightful, sometimes. "Nothing that you need to worry about," she replied. The moment she'd spoken, she hoped Shaz understood that the irritation was not directed at her.

"Okay. Only, see, I thought you two had kind of sorted yourselves out."

"So did I."

Shaz gave a slow nod. "Sometimes blokes get a bit scared when they realise it might be, you know, the real thing?"

Alex sighed. "Well, I'm not getting ahead of myself," she said, as neutrally as she could. "And to be honest, Shaz, I probably shouldn't have said this much to you."

"I won't say anything," Shaz assured her. "Not even to Chris. I was just worried. You've looked so sad today."

Alex put her arms around Shaz in appreciation of her support – and because she needed the hug – and then Chris opened the side door to announce that m'lady's carriage awaited.

"Same time tomorrow?" Shaz asked.

Alex nodded. It wasn't as if she had any other plans.

~~~

On the Sunday night, she'd had enough of waiting and wondering. Around nine o'clock she picked up the telephone and dialled.

"What?" Gene's voice demanded.

It was almost like he'd anticipated who was calling. Alex supposed she should be grateful for the fact that he'd bothered to pick the phone up at all. She didn't bother with any pleasantries, since she and Gene were clearly beyond them. She just said, "Tell me what I've done wrong."

He paused. Then he said, "What?"

"I must have done something."

"What the bloody hell are you talking about, Bolly?" Gene managed to sound like he was genuinely bewildered.

"It can't be that we weren't good together. Or you wouldn't have come back for a second helping. So unless you're telling me that two nights of sex were quite enough to satisfy your libido for the time being, something else must have happened."

There was another pause, then Gene sighed and said, "Might want to make a note for yourself, here, Bols. Clingy women? Not very attractive."

"Clingy!" She breathed until her outrage had settled over her like static. "Make a note for _yourself_ , Gene. When you start treating a woman you fucked like she's a leper, and she puts up with this, and eventually she calls you to ask what the hell is going on – that? Is not 'clingy'. That is a bloke behaving like a piece of shit."

"Fine, then. You won't want to waste any more time talking to me."

He put the phone down. Alex did so too, after a few seconds to catch her breath.

What the hell was going on?

~~~

Monday was little better than Friday; the 'little' came about only because she knew what to expect.

And then came Tuesday. A rainy, sodden Tuesday, of course.

Everyone in the department wanted to come out to Dorking to cheer her on. Alex spent the morning waiting for Hunt to announce that he would remain in place at the station, since she couldn't imagine that he'd want to offer anything in the way of support. As it happened, he didn't do that. Perhaps because he realised that after standing by her side for the competition thus far it would be far too obvious if he stopped.

The lads drew straws to decide who would stay and mind the store. Young Thaddeus lost out along with Chris. Chris was furious. He felt like he had a right to be there, cheering Alex on, since he'd been helping her train this past weekend. He had a point. Ray smoothed over Chris's fury by offering to stay himself, ostensibly because he wanted Chris to shut up moaning, and of course – Ray announced to all who'd listen – he wasn't all that interested in 'superbint' and her competition. But Alex could see that Ray was just being sweet to help out his mate, and she didn't take the insults personally.

Later that morning Superintendent Wilcox came into CID. The Guv came out of his office to greet their superior, but Wilcox only wanted to talk to Alex. He announced that he'd be attending the race himself, in support of Fenchurch East's erstwhile competitor. Alex smiled and thanked him for this. He leaned in to her in the manner he had when pretending to speak confidentially – even though he usually wanted others to overhear – and told her that 'Lord Scarman himself' had told him he would be rooting for her too.

Everyone was on her side, it seemed. Apart from the man she needed. As Wilcox left the office, Alex saw that the Guv was looking at her with an expression of contempt. The look was so naked, so fierce, that it left her feeling winded.

So they all drove out to Dorking, Alex in her usual place in the passenger seat of the Quattro, Chris and Shaz chatting happily in the back seat. It astonished Alex that no one except Shaz had even noticed the chill that had developed between herself and Gene. Maybe it was about the familiarity factor. When Clive had given her his assessment of her relationship with Gene last week, he'd pointed out that he had an unbiased viewpoint. Perhaps the Fenchurch lot had become so used to various degrees of tension between their Guv and his Inspector that they'd developed a blind spot.

In spite of the rain, the crowd of spectators was impressive. The Fenchurch East group all went to stake out a decent spot behind the cordon from which they could await Alex's race. Alex went with Shaz into the centre's main building in order to get changed. She knew already that she was the only female officer among the sixteen play-off contestants, and therefore she would have the changing facilities to herself for the afternoon.

Only one woman. That in itself made it important to Alex that she make it through to the finals.

A voice hailed her as she made her way through the building with Shaz. Alex turned to see Mackey shouldering his way past other people to come over to her. He gave her a broad grin.

"Didn't think I'd seen the last of you," he told Alex. He glanced at Shaz. "And what happened to you, young lady? Had you down as a dead cert for the next round!"

Shaz sighed with some residual disappointment. Alex was more blunt about it. "She got done," she said. "By a cheat."

Mackey frowned and shook his head, not understanding the comment. Of course, he was only up to speed with the physical fitness rounds; he hadn't been present for the indoor competition. Briefly, Alex explained the strategy Harris had employed to beat Shaz, and then went on to describe how she and her colleagues had engineered the change to the competition rules.

Mackey listened with interest: in fact he seemed more interested than Alex would have anticipated. And when she was done talking he nodded and said, "And now it starts to make sense."

Alex frowned. "What?"

He checked his watch and shook his head. "Listen, I've got to get out there before the first race – we're installing the railing up on the tower platform again. I will explain later on, though. Just watch yourself out there today, all right?"

"I know, rainy conditions, just concentrate on completing the course without injury."

"Just be careful," Mackey said again. Then he wandered off.

Alex turned to Shaz and they shared a 'what was that about?' shrug.

They made their way to the door to the female changing rooms. Just as they were about to disappear inside, another voice shouted for Alex. She turned to see Clive weaving down the bustling corridor. She smiled.

"Hey you," she greeted him. "Which race are you?"

"Third one," Clive said. He looked at Shaz and grinned a friendly grin before turning his attention back to Alex. "You?"

"First one. They changed the schedule. Someone in my race needs to get back early, so we're up first." She frowned. "Me, and that Neanderthal."

"Yeah, well, don't worry about him," Clive advised her. "Worry about getting yourself to the finish-line. Speaking personally? I think he could start the indoor rounds with an eight point lead over you and you'd still leave him in the dust."

"You're like my very own motivational speaker," Alex said with a smile. Clive looked nonplussed. "Doesn't matter. I'd, er, better go and change. Since I'm up first."

"All the woodwork'll be nice and clean," Clive pointed out. "Try not to muddy it too much for me."

"Oh, right, _that'll_ be at the forefront of my mind," she said, rolling her eyes.

Clive smiled. "Good luck, Alex."

"You too."

Clive moved away. Shaz, closer to the changing room door, pushed it open and preceded her inside. Alex followed.

And then Shaz let out a squeal as her legs disappeared from under her, and she came crashing down on her back with her head narrowly missing the unforgiving edge of the nearest bit of bench.

~~~

Shaz was being attended by one of the centre's trained first-aiders, though her only real injuries were bruises and a slight rash on her hands.

The accident had happened because a pool of slippery chemical stuff had formed on the floor just inside the door of the changing rooms. A plastic gallon-container of evil looking pink detergent – industrial strength floor cleaner in concentrate form – had been left to one side, and somehow it had been tipped over. It hadn't done Shaz more damage than these superficial injuries, but only because she'd been wrapped up against the rain and her hands were the only exposed part of her body that had come into contact with it.

The manager of the outdoor pursuits centre had shown up himself in order to examine the circumstances of the accident. He claimed that all cleaning materials were kept locked away when not in use, such was their standard working procedure, and he'd be having a stern word with all cleaning staff in order to work out who could have failed to comply with the rules. Meanwhile one of his underlings mopped up the spillage and tidied away the container. While wearing thick rubber gloves, Alex noticed.

Alex pointed out that it could have been a lot worse. If Shaz had been any taller, she'd have probably caught her head when she slipped, either against the door or the bench. At best they'd have been looking at a concussion. Nasty.

Shaz said, wincing as the first-aider applied some kind of aloe cream to her well-rinsed hands, "Good point, ma'am. Just as well I went in first, really."

Alex put it down to her police officer's brain that she took that comment and ran with it. Could it have been deliberate? It was known that she was the only female competitor, so if the chemical had been left in its puddle as a trap then she, personally, was the target. And Alex could think of at least one person, present at the centre this afternoon, who'd be only too delighted to incapacitate her in some way ahead of her race.

But this was just a glimmer of paranoia, possibly brought on by the stress and confusion of the last few days. And maybe she'd seen a few too many thrillers in her time as well. Much more sensible was the explanation that the underpaid and overworked cleaning staff at a place like this forgot to include the container when putting their equipment away after their shift, and it had been knocked over. An accident. Alex shook her head clear of conspiracy theories.

Shaz was taken outside in Chris's care. The changing room emptied of hovering officials. Alex was alone. She got changed into her tracksuit – this time she wore a 'blue' stripe – and cleared her thoughts. She had an assault course to complete.

~~~

Alex took her place at the start of the race. Mackey waited by the wall. The spectators were already cheering loudly. The rain was not too heavy, but it was unrelenting. Alex already felt drenched.

Josh Harris surprised the hell out of her by coming straight up to her and offering a hand. "No hard feelings," he said in quite the congenial tone, even as his eyes were glassy with hostility. "Just wanted to wish you luck."

While she was trying to work out whether the good wishes were genuinely meant or some kind of sardonic insult, the nearest official told her to take her mark. Alex did so, glancing at the nearby group of Fenchurch East supporters. Shaz seemed to have recovered from her nasty fall, and was whooping for her with exuberance. Wilcox stood to one side with Lord Scarman, beaming: taking personal credit for his station's success in the competition thus far.

Gene's face was a mask. Not that she cared about that. Obviously. The insensitive git.

The starter's pistol fired and she was off. She trotted down the slight incline to the wall, telling herself this was no big deal. She'd done this before, after all. The ground wasn't even as difficult to traverse as it had been last time, since she was the first competitor of the afternoon and it hadn't yet been churned into a muddy bog. She made it to the wall without slipping, and Mackey hoisted her up.

"Steady and careful, Alex," he muttered as he did so. Alex thought that it was the first time he'd used her first name. Odd.

She found her toe hold and used the rope to haul up. Though the rain was cold and made everything slippery, things were fine. The rope had been tied with extra holds as before.

Now for the tricky bit. She needed reserves of strength, since she'd established by now that this part was motivation-dependent. Sod Gene. She imagined Shaz, at the mercy of that lurching tosser Harris who was trying to cover her in toxic chemicals. _'Oh no you don't, prick-face – not while Alex Drake has anything to say about it...'_

She was up; she locked her arms to hold herself there and then leaned over the top of the wall: just a simple roll over and she'd be back down again. As she moved, there was a sharp pain in her belly. She winced and cried out, but she couldn't afford to take the time to back off from the pain, since the only alternative option was to lower herself back to the ground. So she gritted her teeth, completed her roll and scrambled down the other side. Her landing was heavy, but she kept her feet.

As she stood up, she glanced down at her tracksuit top. The pain was still present, a bit like a splinter was pressing into her, or a nail or some such, but she could see no tear in the fabric. She must have pulled an abdominal muscle. And on the first obstacle too: just bloody great.

Onwards she raced. And here was the beam, already drenched from days of rain, standing aloft over a puddle that now resembled a village pond and was probably being settled by the local amphibious wildlife. She scraped the mud off her trainers and then took the thing nice and steady.

"This one's for you, PC Fuller," she muttered, thinking of her ginger-haired opponent from the last round, since he'd taken a bad tumble here and she knew what that felt like. She made it across the beam safely and, as she touched down and moved on, the second firing of the pistol sounded.

A hurdle next. She didn't have the muscle-strength to vault the thing, but she didn't want to roll over it because there was still an obtrusive pain in her gut. She glanced down again, convinced that something must have happened to make her hurt in this way, but she could see nothing wrong. The dark tracksuit was intact, if sodden with the rain. Alex gritted her teeth and forced herself to move past the pain and to roll over the thick wooden bar. As her belly pressed the hurdle, the pain increased sharply enough that she wanted to cry out, but she swallowed the urge and kept going. She made it over okay, though her legs threatened to wobble as she found her feet on the other side.

She realised that as well as breathing hard, she was starting to wheeze. What the hell was the matter with her? She'd done this course in worse conditions, and the fatigue hadn't hit her until the climb up to the tower platform. Were these symptoms psychosomatic because of emotional stress? The brain could play cruel tricks on the body, and she'd been hurt by Gene's attitude–

Bang! The third contestant had just entered the race.

"Keep going, ma'am!" Shaz's clear voice out-shouted the spectators for a moment. This was closely followed by a masculine roar of, "Go on, Alex!" which she suspected came from Clive.

She ran. Tyres. Her legs weren't working as well as they should and felt all cotton-woolly. She shook her head and demanded better from her body. It didn't respond until she almost caught her foot in the edge of a tyre. A split second from crashing over and needing to re-do the obstacle, she felt a surge of adrenaline. It saw her through the tyre dance.

She stumbled a bit as she covered the ground to the rope swing. The final shot from the starter's pistol came as she took a hold of the rope, and she knew Harris was on the course. More adrenaline. Adrenaline was good; adrenaline was her friend. She pushed out strongly, made it across the rain-swelled pool and dropped down on the other side. She landed badly and fell to one side in the mud. Her stomach was absolutely fucking _ripping_ , now. She wanted to examine her abdomen, just to be sure there was no injury there, but of course, how could there be an injury? Anything that might have penetrated her skin would have needed to go through her clothing too, and her clothing was fine.

Alex made it to her feet. Alongside her was a thud, and mud sprayed over her. Her nearest competitor had just made it across the rope swing. The guy – wearing the green stripe – took the time to call a breathless, "Sorry!" to her as he moved past. Alex felt the absurd need to laugh as she took off after him. Though that was partly because of a strange dizziness she was experiencing.

She staggered along to the next obstacle. Another hurdle. Oh god: more pressure on her stomach. Was there another way over? There wasn't. She'd just have to bear the pain. Alex clenched her molars and rolled over the damn thing.

There was a burst of agony in her gut that made her vision go funny. She thought she might have screamed, but couldn't be sure. Everything had gone quiet for a moment. Then, in a surge, the deafening noise from the spectators filled the vacuum of silence and she heard familiar voices urging her on. She wondered if any of her colleagues had noticed that something was wrong. Shaz would have, surely.

She found her feet and stumbled onwards. In a whistle of motion another contestant sped past her. It was Harris; how had he managed to catch up so fast? She now lay in third position, and the climb up the net to the tower was still ahead of her. She'd never recover that lost ground, not unless Harris did something stupid and took a tumble. That was what would happen in the movie, of course. Bad guys always got their comeuppance. Like the bloke in _Towering Inferno_ who tried to save himself at the expense of others. Morality will prevail–

Her thoughts were rambling. She reined them in. Alex reminded herself that she shouldn't worry about the racing, because of psychology and being out in front or something – not that she was in front anymore – but the important thing was to avoid injury, even though it felt like she had a big hole in her gut and her legs were turning to sawdust and her lungs were clogged with treacle.

She made it to the edge of the net climb. Harris had almost caught up with the green contestant near the platform edge. Alex grasped a hold of the net and tried to remember technique. Three hand holds. No, that wasn't right. For that you'd need three hands. Two hand holds and something else. A prehensile tail would be nice, but no, wrong species. Feet! Hand and foot holds. Three. At a time. And try not to put your whole leg through the gap in the net. And don't forget that just at the moment you need him the most, Gene will be there for you. He'll come running. Or Molly. Or Shaz. Or someone. Running through the rain. Until then, take one second at a time. Reach, test, grab, hope, ignore the stabbing agony in your gut, try not to throw up–

Alex felt a cold lash of wind and rain and came out of what felt like a stupor. She looked around, almost surprised to find herself halfway – make that two thirds of the way – up the rope netting. Her thoughts were muddied. Someone was yelling her name. She frowned and looked up.

"Alex!" Mackey was calling through the gusting wind. "Can you hear me?"

She frowned. "Of course I can," she said. Or wheezed. Something was very wrong. She wondered what it was. She looked around. The spectators weren't cheering anymore. In fact there seemed to be rumbles of concern.

"Alex, just hold on there, okay? I'm coming down to you."

"Why?" she called back. Or she meant to. She didn't hear herself make a sound. She felt darkness descending, which was odd for early afternoon. Her limbs all felt tickly and strange, as though there was no power in any of her muscles. She actually heard herself giggle with the dizziness, just as the darkness was complete–

Ouch.

Something had happened. She opened her eyes.

_Ouch_.

What the...? She was all of a heap on the ground, and everything was hurting. Christ on a bike, _everything_. Especially her tummy and her left ankle. Her eyes tried to assess the situation but her vision was blurred. Rain above and mud beneath: she was like the filling in a soggy sandwich. What was going on? And why couldn't she breathe? Her wheezing was wet and crackly, as if she'd taken to inhaling rain instead of the air.

Ah, that was Mackey's face. She liked Mackey. She trusted him. "Something's wrong," she managed to tell him between wheezes. The words came out slurred.

"Shut up. Lie still. Ambulance is on its way," he said. "You've broken your ankle – it got caught in the net when you fainted."

"I didn't faint!" she told him, outraged.

"Course you didn't. You're far too tough. Where else does it hurt?" Mackey asked.

"Stomach." Yes, she remembered. "Something hurt my stomach. Top of the wall."

"Right."

Without any further ado, Mackey unzipped her tracksuit top and pushed it aside. The numerous other people crowding around nearby gave a collective gasp. Alex frowned. She was in good shape, but not _that_ good. She tried to lift up her head to see.

The lower part of her T-shirt was red with blood. Quite a lot of blood, it seemed.

"Oh," Alex said.

Her head fell back to the ground and she lost consciousness again.

~~~

Alex came to in an ambulance. It was nice not to have the rain on her face. There was a mask on it instead. Her breathing seemed to be easier. She was strapped in and couldn't move, and a medic was bending over her taking her blood pressure. She noticed that her T-shirt had been cut away and she was stripped down to her sports bra above the waist. There was a padded dressing that covered much of her stomach.

"You're all right, Alex," the medic said when he noticed her eyes were open. "You've lost some blood, but you're all right."

She said the first thing that came to mind. "Where's Gene?"

The medic was shoved to one side, and Gene's head and shoulders appeared above her. He glared. It was comforting. "I'm here, Bols," he said. Something warm and dry wrapped itself around her nearest hand.

Alex smiled. She wasn't feeling any pain, though she felt sort of loopy. In truth, she wasn't convinced that any of this was happening. Maybe she was having a weird stress-dream, the night before her competition day.

"Doesn't take much, then," she mumbled through her mask.

"What's that?" he asked. His face came a lot closer, like he couldn't quite hear her.

"Doesn't take much. To get you to be nice."

"Oh, shut up you daft mare."

She smiled her loopy smile again, because she'd heard the tremor in his voice and she knew what it meant. " _You_ shut up. Tosser." She hoped he knew what that meant, too.

She closed her eyes and tried to squeeze his hand–

–but she was squeezing nothing. She opened her eyes and looked around. A blurred wall of white came slowly into focus.

No more ambulance. She was in a hospital ward, or an alcove of one because she couldn't see other beds off to the side. By the amount of equipment she was looking at, this was intensive care. Her thoughts began to clear for what felt like the first time in days.

"Hello there, Alex," a female voice said in the kind of soft West Indian accent she'd always loved. Oh yes, _everyt'ing irie_... "Back with us, I see."

Alex blinked. Bending over her bed was a pleasantly round nurse with beads in her hair.

"Hello," she tried to say. It came out as a weird pressure and click.

"You're intubated, love. Hold on. I can see you're fighting the air, which is good. Means you're breathing on your own. Now, when I say, I want you to breath out hard. Okay?"

Alex followed the instructions as the nurse removed the breathing tube. She coughed, then tried a few breaths. Everything seemed to work, though her throat felt a bit sore.

"Good job, love. Ah, we'll have you back on your feet in no time. Or one of 'em, anyway, and a pair o' crutches – that'll have to do you for a month or two. Now. My name's Win, okay? You can call me 'Winifred' but I won't answer to it. Win."

"Hello Win," Alex said. Her voice sounded sandpapery around the edges. "Um, what happened?"

"In time, love, in time. First things first." Win held a cup of water and a straw in place, and encouraged Alex to suck some down. It felt heavenly. "Good job. Now. Are you warm? Some people feel chilly post-op."

"I'm fine." She did a double take. "I'm post-op?"

"I'll tell y'all about it in a minute. Let's just straighten you out first. Any pain, sickness, anything like that?"

Alex narrowed her eyes. "I think I need a wee."

"No problems there, love, you're all tubed up."

"Right. Of course." She sighed. "No, I think...I think I'm okay. Tired."

"You'll be a bit woozy for a while as you shake off the anaesthetic. More water?"

Alex nodded and sipped. When Win had put the cup down, Alex tried to fix her with a meaningful stare.

Win just gave a beatific smile. "Right, love. You're in Dorking Royal Infirmary. You were admitted about three o'clock this afternoon with a badly broken ankle, a puncture wound to your stomach, and suspicion of toxins in your blood. You went straight to surgery. Your ankle's been set and will heal just fine. Part of a large needle – the kind carpet-makers use? – was removed from your abdomen. A tear in your large intestine has been mended, and your tummy's all sewn up. You needed quite a bit o' blood. We were worried about toxins because the puncture wound had the appearance of some chemical burns." Win paused for a moment. "Are you following all this, love?"

Alex needed a moment for her brain to catch up. "Chemicals. Right. So the needle was...coated?"

"Can't think of any other way you could burn your skin under your clothes."

Alex swallowed. Her body was still gathering itself after the trauma of anaesthesia and surgery. She breathed. "Someone did this to me. On purpose."

"That seems to be the verdict of your friends too."

"Was there any toxin found in my blood?"

"Mild arsenical poisoning."

"Arsenic!"

"Very mild; not enough to do bad things to your heart. Arsenical compounds are in a lot o' things. Industrial solvents and the like." Win was busying herself at the clipboard hanging from the end of the bed.

"Shaz," Alex said. "There was a pool of...um, cleaning fluid. I think."

"Ah, the pretty young thing with the rash on her hands? Sodium hydroxide burns," Win said. "She's been looked at, love – she'll be fine."

"Oh. Good." Alex drew a deep breath. "She's still here?"

"She is. Her and the young man, doesn't like her to be out of his sight. And the older fella who glares." Win noticed her smile. "I'm thinking you know the one I mean."

"Can I see him?" Alex asked. "Them. I mean."

"I should think so. Just for a short while, then you need to rest."

Win checked the read-outs on the machines by Alex's bed, then she nodded and left the alcove. Alex closed her eyes a moment. She was feeling quite tired, which seemed silly after she'd been put to sleep for an hour or two–

"Oy. Bols. Sleeping on the job again?"

Her eyes fluttered open. Gene was looming over her. He seemed to be alone. She smiled. "Hello."

"Looks like you're in a good mood," he said gruffly. "Have to get some of these drugs you're on. Might make you more manageable at work."

Alex sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm the difficult one."

There was the glimmer of a smirk beneath the scowl. "How you feeling, Bolly?"

"Right now? Fine. Great. I mean, my ankle's broken and there's a hole in my gut and someone tried to poison me with arsenic, but hey. Drugs. Lovely."

Win appeared behind Gene and offered a chair he could sit on. He sat and reached for Alex's hand, probably before he'd even thought about what he was doing. He studied her fingers for a moment.

"Mackey's going over the course again," he said. "Do you know when the needle went in?"

"Top of the wall, I think," Alex replied. "Must have impaled myself right on it when I rolled over the top. But then again – it's all a bit hazy."

"Top of the wall. Yeah, that's what he thought. Mackey. I, er, gave him a ring when you came out of surgery. Told him he might find the rest of the needle if he looked. Piece they got out of you looked like it had snapped off."

"How big was it?"

"About an inch, inch and a half."

"Oh. I tried to look. Couldn't see why it hurt."

Gene nodded. "Clever bit of sabotage. Either it worked, or you'd just knock it down into the mud and no one'd be any the wiser."

Alex frowned as her memories began to fall into place. "And if it _did_ work – rest of the course would just drive the damn thing deeper into my gut." Like the hurdles she'd made herself roll across. Each time moving that shard of metal inside her, to pierce and tear and do her more damage.

Gene took a deep breath. "Mackey had some information. Someone tried to bribe him to look the other way when the course was checked."

"Oh." Alex had the faint memory of Mackey making some odd comments before the race. "Well, I'm guessing he said no."

"Course." Gene sniffed. "But there's other staff members at the centre, might've been easier to persuade."

"Ah." Alex considered. "Shaz's accident – I think it was meant for me."

"Let's not get paranoid. Could've just been an accident."

"Or it could've been meant for _me_ ," she insisted. "You said it yourself – the needle might not have worked. Harris covered his bases. In fact just 'cause we only found out about two of his schemes doesn't mean there weren't more."

"We're casting Harris as the Hooded Claw, are we?"

"Hey, I'm the reason he had no chance of winning the indoor rounds. Who else hates me that much?" She looked at Gene. "You know what? Don't answer that."

Gene sighed. "I don't hate you, Bols."

"No? You've been doing a good impression." He didn't seem to have an answer to that. Alex shook her head and closed her eyes. "Messed up my round, anyway. Zero bloody points. I suppose the other three all finished?"

" _That's_ what you're worried about? There was arsenic on that bloody–"

"You sound like you give a shit," she said, opening her eyes.

"Well of course I–" Gene stopped, and gave an irritated huff. "Not really the time and place for this conversation, is it?"

"Just tell me." Her voice cracked. She told herself it was down to her injuries. "What did I _do_?"

"Nothing, Bols. You did nothing. Okay?"

"But last Thursday everything was great. Then it...then it wasn't."

"We'll talk about it when you're better."

"Okay." Alex closed her eyes again. Tiredness was pressing. "But you made me miss you. I'm not bloody happy about that."

She sensed warm breath on her fingers. But if Gene made any reply she wasn't aware of it, because she'd slipped into sleep.

~~~

Alex was moved from intensive care the following morning, to a bog-standard ward in what turned out to be a pretty bog-standard National Health Service hospital.

The dosage of pain-killers she received was already being cut. This was not good. Pain crept into her periphery. She became aware of the ache in her newly plaster-cast ankle, and the burning spot in her belly where she'd been cut open so a surgeon could remove the needle. Still. Back in the days when her father had been her story-telling hero and not a maniac, he'd always told her that pain happened because the good fairies were fighting the bad fairies and winning. So she bore the discomfort.

Through a combination of memories, witness statements from visitors and her medical staff, and basic logic, Alex was able to piece together what had happened to her on the assault course. The needle had been inserted into the very top of the wall, right where she'd need to roll over to the other side. It had pierced her stomach and snapped off inside her, conveying trace arsenical compounds into her bloodstream and damaging not only her skin but the bowels beneath. The poison had not been severe enough to cause pulmonary oedema – a life-threatening condition where the lungs filled with fluid – but it had made her wheeze quite badly.

The blood loss had eventually made her light-headed: every time the needle had moved with her exertions it had torn through her epidermis again until the original tiny puncture had become a messy series of tears. With her heart beating so hard she'd pumped out quite a bit of blood over her T-shirt. The darkness of her tracksuit and the way it was wet from the rain had disguised all this, or she might have had the sense to stop throwing herself about over obstacles a lot sooner.

As it was, the further she'd progressed in the course, the worse her physical state had become. Stubborn determination and perhaps muscle memory had seen her get most of the way up the net-climb to the platform, at which point her body had given out and she'd fainted for the first time. Mackey had noticed something wrong as she'd clung limply to the netting, and he'd called down to her. She'd stirred, then fainted again, this time falling backwards and catching her foot in one of the net's square holes. This had broken both her fall and her ankle. She'd been unconscious as she slipped from the netting, upside-down, to fall the rest of the way to the muddy ground. She could probably count herself lucky that she hadn't sustained worse injuries in the tumble.

The only thing she couldn't work out was why the saboteur had thought he could get away with this. There was no way it could be written off as an unlucky accident. A carpet-maker's needle embedded at the top of an obstacle? It had to be deliberate. And this idea was reinforced by the way the races had been rescheduled so her own had come first. She'd been the only female contestant; that meant she'd be first off the start-line, the first to attempt the wall. This had so obviously been meant for her. This had been personal.

Alex could only assume that whoever had planted that needle had wanted to injure her more than he'd wanted to be covert about it. Perhaps he'd figured that a needle would retain no fingerprint evidence that might link it back to the culprit; perhaps _that_ was his thinking: he could hurt her, prevent her from finishing the assault course round, and he could get away with it. Suspicion might fall upon him, but there'd be no proof.

Mackey visited her at the hospital that morning, bearing flowers, fruit and an expression of quietly desperate guilt. He told her that his own investigation had not yet identified the means by which the saboteur had bypassed the usual safety checks on the course. Alex was quite sure that when Mackey said 'investigation' what he meant was 'shouting in his team's face until one of them confessed'. But if there was a rogue staff member, he or she hadn't come clean. This was understandable, since a police officer was currently recovering in hospital after what amounted to an assault.

Mackey told her he blamed himself. He'd known someone was trying to pull a fast one, and it had been his own hubris regarding the sanctity of his assault course and the loyalty of his staff that had prevented him from doing the triple-checks that might have averted disaster. He could only apologise, he said, though he seemed to feel the need to do so over and over again.

Alex rolled her eyes and forgave him. Whoever had wanted her injured – and she was certain she knew who that was – would have managed it somehow. If one method had been denied to her saboteur, he'd have chosen another. In fact she was convinced that there'd been multiple other traps laid for her on that day, most of which she knew nothing about.

Throughout the day a few of her CID colleagues came to visit. Shaz reported that her hands were much better, even as she insisted that a bit of a rash was hardly something to worry about after everything Alex had been through. Shaz brought with her a stack of magazines, a couple of paperbacks, and a Sony Walkman with a few tapes. All useful things to bring a bed-bound patient in a hospital. Shaz, of course, knew only too well how it felt.

Chris brought Alex grapes. He told her that the Guv was treating the whole thing like a criminal investigation and might not be in until later because he was out with Ray collecting 'evidence'.

Superintendent Wilcox put in a showing just after lunch. He told her that 'Lord Scarman himself' had asked him to pass on his best wishes for a full recovery. Alex asked Wilcox about the stuff that had been on her mind all morning. "So what happens with the play-offs now? Am I just starting the other rounds on zero points, or will the race be rescheduled?"

"None of the races have been completed yet," Wilcox replied. "When it was obvious that you'd been injured, there was a safety issue. The other races were cancelled until the course could be looked at. Gone over with a fine-tooth comb, so to speak. The whole thing's been put on hold."

Alex sighed and said, "I see. Well, I'm not going to be completing an assault course any time soon. Not with a broken ankle."

Wilcox nodded. "Yes, that's true. Unfortunately we can't hold the competition up for six weeks. Not with the finals already scheduled."

She tut-tutted with the unfairness of it all. "So I'm out of it, am I?"

Wilcox shook his head in mock-disbelief. "Honestly, I'd've thought that would be the last thing on your mind, DI Drake."

"What can I say, sir?" she said, and gave a small, wry smile. "I'm a determined pair of stockings. And I don't like thinking I'm going to let my team down."

"Well, the competition officials are still trying to work out what to do. I know DCI Hunt has his suspicions about the cause of your injuries. If that's borne out by any evidence? I can see Mr Harris being disqualified from the competition. And in that case, the natural solution would be that the contestant who was runner-up in his first heat should take his place."

Alex's eyes widened. "That would be WPC Granger."

"Indeed it would."

She clenched a fist. "Oh, brilliant!" Then she frowned. "I don't want to have to compete against Shaz! Two women in the play-offs and they want to put us up against each other? Sod that!" She remembered whom she was talking to and coughed. "Um, 'scuse me, sir." She sighed. "I don't suppose there's any chance they could re-draw the play-off heats?"

"Unlikely," Wilcox said. "Far as I can tell, the officials have two options to offer you. Either you can withdraw from the contest because of your injury and yield your place to the contestant who came second in your own first heat..."

"PC Keith Fuller," Alex remembered. "Nice guy."

"Indeed. Or you can negotiate some means of skipping the physical fitness round. Perhaps allow the time you achieved in your first heat to stand, see how that compares to the three other contestants? Or accept a default fourth place 'finish' and the two points that would earn? Preferable to starting from zero, wouldn't you say? I don't think many would claim that's unfair, after what you've been through."

Alex pulled a thoughtful face. "Shame I can't deputise. You know? Let someone stand in for me in the physical fitness round?"

Wilcox gave a smile. "I think you'd struggle to make your case there. The officials still have to be fair to the other contestants."

She sighed. "So that's it. I'm probably out of it, and all because some jealous, petulant Neanderthal couldn't take being beaten by a woman."

"There's no evidence, as yet," Wilcox reminded her.

"Someone put that needle in place. Someone dipped it in chemicals. Someone wanted me damaged when I took on the course. I can't think of anyone who'd want that more than the man whose chances I undermined when I pushed for a rule-change."

Wilcox shrugged. "Unofficially? Couldn't agree more. Officially? There's this thing called the law that police officers are supposed to be quite big on."

Alex gave a smirk. "Oh sir. You're such a stickler."

Wilcox departed shortly after that. The day progressed. A doctor came by on rounds to check her injuries and scribble adjustments on her clipboard. Alex tried out the hospital radio system – quite a newfangled idea in 1982 – and gave up on it more or less immediately, choosing instead to listen to Shaz's Walkman for a while. She nibbled grapes and the satsumas Mackey had brought along, since her hospital lunch had been inedible. She flipped through magazines. She got really, really bored.

Towards the early evening she had a few more visitors: those people who hadn't been able to get out to Dorking during working hours. Including Clive, who brought with him a large Tupperware container.

"Hospital food," he said, opening it up, "will kill you. It's a proven fact. And grapes alone cannot a healthy diet sustain." He set the tub down on her little wheelie trolley and Alex leaned forward from her pile of pillows to look inside.

"Ooh. Biccies," she said. Her brain told her that she had just developed an insanely sweet tooth.

"Not just biccies. Home-baked biccies."

Alex raised a brow. "You bake?"

"I have a whole slew of domestic skills."

"And I turned down that dance!"

Clive narrowed his eyes. "Should I have led with my culinary expertise?"

Alex smirked and tried a biscuit. She gave an appreciative murmur. "If I had known then what I know now," she said, and left the sentence hanging.

"Yeah, the answer would still have been the same." Clive gave her a grin to show he wasn't being snippy about it. He settled down beside her in a visitor's chair. "So. Here's an interesting thing. Your boss asked me for some help this afternoon."

Alex offered Clive one of his own biscuits, since it seemed only polite, and looked surprised. "The Guv asked for help? Good grief."

Clive shrugged. "Needed to get some fingerprint stuff rushed through the system. Knew I had the background – probably through the young black lad on your team. The one I was talking to at the party last week?"

"Thaddeus. This was fingerprint evidence on...?"

"On the plastic container of chemical cleaner that got slopped around the ladies' changing room."

Alex wrinkled her forehead in surprise. "I thought the Guv had decided that was just an accident."

"When he talked to me this afternoon, he implied that he thought otherwise."

"Okay. So was there any fingerprint evidence?"

"A bit. Not as much as you might think, even for a plastic container like that. Most people who handle it tend to wear rubber gloves because of the caustic nature of the contents. We got two sets of prints ruled out as belonging to staff members who had a perfect right to be using the thing. And then we got a thumb print."

"Ooh. Identifiable?"

"As it turned out," Clive said. "Mackey offered his own dabs and told his team to supply theirs. They couldn't really refuse."

"The thumb print belonged to one of Mackey's team?"

"It did indeed."

"And am I to take it that this bloke – the thumb print bloke – had no reason to be carting containers of chemicals about?"

"None at all. But according to Mackey he would know where the keys to the store were kept. And when the lad was confronted with the fingerprint evidence, he admitted setting up the puddle that did for Shaz."

"He confessed?"

"Ah, he's just a kid. All but wet himself."

"Did he do the needle too?"

"Yeah. Once he'd started he couldn't stop gabbling. Made it all about his little brother. Needed the money to get his brother through university."

"So there was money involved."

Clive's eyes twinkled. "There was a cheque. Paid in to his account two days ago."

Alex stared. "Oh, don't tell me he was that stupid–"

"Josh Harris? He was that stupid. His cheque account. His signature."

She gave a short laugh.

Clive then frowned and said, "You know, when Hunt comes to see you later it might be best if you pretend I haven't told you all this."

"I'll let him have his moment." She sighed. "So I'm guessing that's where he is right now? He's pulled Harris in for questioning?"

"Well, I don't know. I mean, he's a bit old-school, isn't he? I'd like to think that's what he's doing, but it wouldn't surprise me if he's taking a more direct approach..." Clive took one look at her wary expression and cracked a grin. "Joking!" He frowned. "God, I hope I'm joking."

Alex took another biscuit. "If Harris is disqualified from the competition, Shaz takes his place."

"Really? Nice one! And what about you?" Clive asked.

"I'm giving serious consideration to withdrawing gracefully and ceding my place to PC Fuller."

"Who?"

"Ginger guy from my heat?"

"The chap who fell off the beam?"

"Happens to the best of us," Alex said.

Clive stayed long enough to avail himself of the offer of a cup of tea from the trolley that came around. Alex put the lid on her tub of biscuits, since she'd eaten three already and it was possible to have too much of a good thing.

She clock-watched for twenty minutes or so. Her wait was over when, at just gone six o'clock that evening, Gene Hunt strode into her hospital ward, overcoat flapping around him and his face looking even more rugged than usual thanks to a black eye that was just beginning to show off its bruising.

"You've got to be joking," Alex said.

"What?" Gene asked, as if he wasn't aware of what she was talking about.

"He _hit_ you?"

"Oh, that? Walked into a door."

"Yeah, right." She watched as Gene drew up her visitor's chair and sat down beside her bed. "Actually it sort of suits you."

"Bugger off."

"I'm going nowhere. My ankle's in plaster, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Always some ruddy excuse." His scowl warmed with his trademark 'hint of smile'. "How you feeling there, Bols?"

"They've cut me off from the morphine. I've been better. You?"

"Flushed with success."

"Then you'd better tell me all about it."

Gene went ahead and explained, just as Clive had done, about the chain of evidence that had linked Harris to the events of yesterday. The investigation had hardly been Columbo-esque in its complexity. Just a nasty, selfish, petulant man who'd lashed out when he felt he'd been disentitled.

When Gene was done, Alex said, "So what sold you?"

"How d'you mean?" Gene asked.

"I mean, yesterday? I know I was a bit loopy from the anaesthetic, but I'm pretty sure I remember you insisting that what happened with Shaz was an accident. Then today you're off getting fingerprint evidence. What happened?"

Gene shrugged. "Can't lift dabs off a needle. Figured you might've had a point. It was worth looking into."

"You changed your mind," she said flatly.

"It's been known to happen."

"Hmm. Yeah, I remember."

"Bols–"

"No. No, I am not getting fobbed off with 'we'll talk later' again. Something happened. Something changed. Do I get an explanation?"

He gave a big sigh. "Turns out it was all...I mean, it was..." Another sigh. "Look, you said Harris'd try a lot of things to bring you down."

"We're not talking about that; we're talking about you and me. I don't even care about Harris and his stupid–"

"It's all part of the same thing!"

Alex frowned. "What?"

"Last week. Friday. I got a call, didn't I?"

"I'm sure you got several."

"Bolly, will you just shut your face for two bastard minutes? I'm trying to explain here, all right? And I think you _know_ it doesn't come naturally, so...?"

Alex shrugged, folded her arms and squeezed her lips together.

"Thank you," he said. "I got a call. Bloke said his name was Malcolm Owen." He shot her a meaningful glance.

Malcolm Owen. She knew that name. Why did she know that name? The memory fell into place: she knew it from her Met personnel record. It was one of the first things she'd done when she'd shown up in this world. 'You put in for it,' Gene had told her on her first day here. She'd checked up on that. She'd needed to know where she was supposed to have come from. So she'd checked her own records, and discovered that prior to July 1981 she'd worked out of Scotland Yard under a DCI Malcolm Owen. According to this world, anyway.

"Yeah," Gene said. "Your ex-boss. Supposedly." She frowned at that comment but let him finish. "And he said some things. Some shitty things, as it turned out. And I, er, needed a bit o' time to sort through them."

And that, apparently, was that: explanation done. Alex waited. Gene, however, wasn't saying anything more. He was involved in a fascinated study of his thumbs.

"Why 'supposedly'?" she asked.

"What?"

"You said, 'Your ex-boss. Supposedly.' What did you mean?"

"Oh. Yeah. Well, turns out the bloke I talked to wasn't actually this DCI Owen."

"Someone phoned you pretending to be my ex-boss?"

"Yeah."

"And said some unpleasant things about me."

"Yeah."

It all started to become clear.

"I mean, how was I to know?" Gene asked. "Never met this bloke, Owen."

"It was Harris."

Gene shrugged. "Harris, or one of his mates."

"And what were these things my supposed ex-boss said about me?"

"You don't want to know. Let's leave it at that."

"Okay, fine, we could do that. Except it's not really the point, is it? Josh Harris went to some lengths to punish a woman he perceived as a threat to his god-given manly right to be manly and victorious and did I mention manly? But so what? That's Harris's problem. And Harris saw us together and figured out that I rely on you for support. So what, again? Harris isn't the first person to do that – we're less circumspect than we'd like to think, Gene. No, the point is–"

"Oh, we are getting to the point, are we? Just, you know, if you could wave a flag or something–"

"Piss off. The point is not what Harris did. The point is what _you_ did."

"I think you'll find I was a victim of Harris's scheming too."

"Only because someone told you lies about me and you bloody well believed them!"

"That's not how it happened," Gene said with a sulk.

"Oh no? See, I've got this thing called short-term memory, and last Friday? Something changed. One minute you're looking at me like you want us to nip off and grab a quickie in the evidence room. The next minute you can't keep the disgust out of your eyes."

"You're overreacting. Typical bloody woman."

"You're rewriting history because it makes you look like an idiot and a shit. Typical bloody man."

They glared at each other. Gene surprised her by conceding first. He looked down at his thumb and frowned.

"There was a moment yesterday morning," Alex said more quietly, "before we left to drive down to the outdoor pursuits centre. After Wilcox had come into the office, remember? You looked at me with such contempt, it was like...it was like being kicked in the gut." She swallowed. "Turns out some stuff hurts worse than a carpet-maker's needle bouncing around in your belly."

Gene lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes, then he remembered his bruising and winced.

"Owen," he said, then corrected himself, "or the man who pretended to be Owen – he said you use sex to get what you want. Said you'd done it with him, and moved on when he couldn't get you any more promotions. Said you were always looking for the chance to get some poor bastard panting after you. Someone you could use."

"And you believed that?"

"He said he'd heard about the competition. Everyone in the Force had, at that point. Saw you were doing well, heard you were even making 'em change the rules to suit you. He said he wanted to warn me. Figured you were up to your old tricks ag–"

"Old tricks! Christ! Before last week I hadn't had sex in six bloody months!"

Gene huffed. "See it my way, Bolly. Bloke says all that to me. Doesn't seem to have any reason to lie. Then Wilcox is in the office and you're smiling at him while he tells you bloody Scarman's cheering you on. What was I supposed to think?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "So at that point you thought I was shagging"– she held up one hand and counted off on her fingers –"my DCI, my Superintendent and a peer of Her Majesty's realm in order to facilitate my progress through some poxy bloody competition?"

He shook his head. "I didn't know what to think."

"Maybe you should have tried trusting me!" She held one palm out flat. "DI Drake, a member of your team, someone who's proved her worth and her loyalty." She held out her other hand, palm facing up. "An unidentified voice on the end of the phone, spouting poison." She 'weighed' her two hands. "Hmm. Which to believe?"

Gene was quiet a moment, then he said, "Right. Yes. Well, I think I'm ready to move past this conversation now, how 'bout you?"

"No problem. Soon as you apologise," Alex told him.

"Bollocks. I don't owe you an apology," Gene countered. "What I owed you was to find out the truth. Soon as I realised someone was trying to hurt you every which way they could, I worked it out. I phoned up DCI Owen at the Yard to check it was the same bloke I talked to before. Turned out he died a few months back. That was a bit of a clue."

"But there was no 'clue' for you in the way someone was telling you I'd shagged my way through the ranks of the Met?"

"Oh, and you've never used that perfectly proportioned arse of yours wi' me?" Gene demanded. "You never wiggled your hips and fluttered your lashes, ended up getting exactly what you want?"

Some of her outrage left her, because yes, she'd done that. And she couldn't argue otherwise.

"For the record," she said, "since my ill-advised one-night-stand last summer? I have 'wiggled' at precisely one man. And that's you."

"I didn't know that, did I?"

"Well, how could you? I mean, it isn't as if you get to see me interact with lots of other men on a regular basis. Except – hang on – it _is_ like that!" She rolled her eyes. "And in case you've forgotten, _you_ were the one who wanted me to show a bit of cleavage when Scarman visited CID last October."

Gene growled out, "Fine, christ, I'm sorry, all right? I'm very bloody sorry. I got it wrong. I apologise. Happy now?"

Alex let the apology sink in, in all its angry and aggressive glory, then she gave a small smile. "Happier," she agreed. "For what it's worth – last week? Felt like the ground was shaking beneath my feet too. God knows what I'd've done if some tosser had decided to feed me a pack of lies about you."

He met her eyes. "I'm forgiven, then?"

"You are forgiven." She leaned closer and whispered, "In fact, I'm already thinking about the make-up sex."

He smirked at that. "How soon before you get out of this place?"

Alex shrugged. "My bloodwork's clear. My injuries are relatively minor. I can be treated as an out-patient. As long as I can demonstrate that my digestive tract is working, doctor reckons I might be able to go home tomorrow."

"Demonstrate how?" Gene asked, frowning.

Alex rolled her eyes. "How do you bloody think?"

"Oh." He glanced at her bedside trolley. "You should eat, then. You need me to get you anything?"

"If my dinner matches the quality of my lunch – and from the smell outside in the corridor, I'm thinking it will – yes. I'll need something to eat." Alex waited for Gene to tell her in no uncertain terms that he was not her private waiter. When he didn't do so, she could only assume that he was feeling genuinely contrite about the 'Owen' business.

"Such as?" was all he asked.

"Well, nothing stodgy or heavy, nothing too spicy or rich. A salad would be perfect. Maybe a bit of soup?"

Gene nodded and stood up. "I'll go and find a restaurant, flash my warrant card."

Alex looked down the bed. She had one leg sticking out of the covers to accommodate the plaster cast on her ankle. It was lying, elevated, on a pile of pillows. "I'll wait here for you, eh?"

Gene followed her gaze. "Yeah." He sniffed. "You know, you'll need someone on hand. When you go home. Can't leave an invalid unsupervised."

"Are you offering to attend to my every need?"

"No. Just the really filthy ones."

Alex smiled. "Fair enough." She stopped him as he turned to leave by reaching for his hand. "Why did Josh Harris punch you?"

Gene rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. "I might possibly have told him he was under arrest for being the most pathetic, sissy, flouncy, sexually intimidated, micro-penis-ed idiot the Met had ever had the misfortune to employ."

She smiled even wider. "You police-god, you."

~~~

Alex withdrew from the competition. It wasn't a difficult decision to make; all her other options required some kind of rule-bend to get her through the physical fitness round. After spending so much time fighting in the corner of 'fairness', it would have seemed hypocritical.

She was faced with another decision shortly afterwards: one about Josh Harris. She chose to press charges. She'd wavered for a while, worried that other police officers might feel offended by her choice –officers were supposed to protect and support each other, after all – but since Harris had well and truly broken that internal code first, the accusations she feared didn't come. Indeed, the Super in charge at Hanfield sent her a personal letter on behalf of the officers working that station, apologising for the injuries she'd sustained and wishing her a speedy recovery.

Gene had made her decision easier by pointing out that if she refrained from pressing charges and thus avoided the matter being resolved in open criminal proceedings, the pencil-necks from Discipline and Complaints would leap all over it. One police officer had injured another police officer; this was D&C's bread and butter. Fenchurch East CID would probably end up with some investigator using the excuse to get his mitts all over the department. Which had been a shudder-inducing thought, and reason enough to prosecute.

Weeks before the case went to trial, however, Alex was preoccupied with the much more important matter of the competition. The physical fitness rounds for the Met play-offs had been rescheduled, and she went along to cheer on all the competitors she considered her friends. At that point her ankle was still in plaster, and she hobbled about the outdoor pursuits centre on her crutches. Everyone wanted to pat her on the shoulder and ask after her recovery. She'd attained something of a folk-hero status, it seemed.

Shaz lined up to race against PC Keith Fuller. The mood among competitors was jovial. The green-striped contestant who'd raced past Alex on the day she'd been injured even took the time to come over and express his regret in not realising she'd been in trouble and stopping to help. Bless him.

Green-stripe won the race. Shaz came in second, with Keith just moments behind her. Alex shouted herself hoarse for all of them. Half an hour later Clive came second in his race. At that point Alex was shouting in spite of her hoarseness.

A few days after that the indoor rounds were scheduled, to finish whittling the last sixteen Met contestants down to four, ready for the nationwide finals. As it turned out, the rule-change not only made the buzzer rounds fairer, it made them more exciting to watch. The audience cheered and gasped and groaned as the competitors proved their mettle.

Shaz came a very close and creditable second to Keith Fuller. Clive won his play-off. At Westminster's Central Hall, Lord Scarman closed the Met-specific part of the competition with a typical bit of pontificating, and then invited Alex herself to stand up and suffer a round of applause for her own contribution.

And that was that. At least, until she went along to cheer for Keith and Clive in the finals. In the meantime she had a job to get on with, a fledgling relationship to navigate and some criminal proceedings which required her presence on the witness stand.

There'd been some legal wrangling over the seriousness of the assaults Harris had attempted. His lawyer argued that he was only partially responsible, since another man had spilled the chemical on the floor of the changing room and embedded the needle in the top of the assault course wall. The lawyer for the man who'd facilitated Harris's sabotage argued in turn that his client had admitted doing these reckless things, expressed sincere regret, and had done them because of a misguided attempt to acquire funds for a very good cause: his brother's university education.

The young man who'd worked for Mackey, after proceedings which saw character witnesses speak on his behalf and a sincerely made courtroom apology, was convicted of common assault and was given a six month suspended sentence.

Harris was charged with malicious wounding and inflicting grievous bodily harm. His team tried to argue down to actual bodily harm, since a not-guilty plea was at that point absurd. They failed. In March of 1982 Harris was convicted of GBH and given a custodial sentence of two years. One petulant tantrum, and Harris had lost his career and his freedom. All because he hated women and couldn't stand to lose.

In the same month, Superintendent Wilcox retired from the Metropolitan Police Force. His replacement at Fenchurch was due in a handful of weeks; this would be DSI Mackintosh. A legend, apparently. Alex looked forward to meeting him.

One evening at Luigi's, not long after the Harris business was resolved, Alex and Shaz came up with a brilliant idea. They kept it to themselves since it required some planning. They called in some favours. They knew they'd have to wait until Alex's ankle had healed.

They were just into April when they managed to pull their idea off.

~~~

"Right then, you 'orrible lot," Mackey shouted as he walked up and down Fenchurch East's 'Team Krypton'. He was really milking the sergeant-major gig. "I understand that there were only two - _two_! - officers in your department with the bollocks to take on this course, last January." He swept an arm out towards the assault course. "And those two officers? Turned out they're of the bollock-less variety."

He turned to Alex and Shaz who stood, relaxed, at the end of the row. "My favourite," Mackey added in a softer voice and with a wink.

Then he turned back to the rest of the tracksuit-clad masses. "It's not good enough!" he barked. "Pathetic. So you're being given one chance – one chance only, you dribbling gaggle of pustular bellends." He paused and turned to Alex and Shaz again. "Er, not you, of course, ladies." He turned back and drew his shoulders back. "One chance only to prove your worth! Are you going to take that chance, ball-bags?"

Gene couldn't help himself; he snorted with amusement. Of course, it helped that Mackey was a friend of the department by now. This was, in fact, the only reason Mackey hadn't been decked.

"Was that a 'yes', DCI Ball-bag?" Mackey barked.

And now everyone else was giggling. At least until Gene looked around and silenced them, at which point Alex couldn't help it and turned away, clutching at her middle to smother the laughter.

"DCI Ball-bag!" she squeaked.

Though it might have looked that way, she wasn't pushing the boundaries of respect; they'd established the rules by now. When they were at work, they kept to matters of work. Mostly. But this was a Saturday, and they were standing in a field in Dorking, and therefore the rules did not apply.

"That was a 'yes', Sergeant-Major Shit-stick, sir!" Gene barked back. Then he added, "Bolly, you are _begging_ for a spanking."

"Not in front of the children," she retorted.

More giggling. Of course, by that time the less-than-circumspect nature of Alex's relationship with Gene had led to a department that was both quite aware of what was going on, and which would take up arms against anyone that suggested it was inappropriate. Mainly because most of the CID lads had never before seen their Guv in a good mood for more than ten minutes at a time.

"I said," Mackey went on to the rest of the troops, ignoring the Gene-Alex back and forth, " _are you going to take that chance, ball-bags_?"

The lads managed a reasonable collective, "Yes sir!" and then they all departed for their starting positions. Three teams of three, working together. One team would take on the course at a time, and they'd be on the clock. The fastest group to complete the course won a magnum of champagne. Not good champagne, but since it would end up soaking the heads of the CID team rather than being poured into flutes and drunk, this made no real odds.

The teams were led by Alex, Shaz and Gene. Alex had Terry and Thad on her side. Shaz had Ray and Bammo. Gene had Chris and Gordo. The teams had been organised to try to even out age and physique. While Alex and Shaz were comfortable with this being a get-together-and-have-fun exercise, most of the boys were taking it seriously.

Men. The gender that had managed to make pissing into a contest. They were daft as brushes, for the most part.

~~~

Bang! Mackey fired the starter's pistol, and Alex and her team took off. At the wall, Thad lifted Alex to the rope, then – because the rules had changed – continued to support her as she found her toe-hold. She pushed up easily since Thad was lifting under one trainer and Terry under the other, and she slung a leg over the top of the wall and stayed there.

Terry went up as far as the ledge thanks to a bunk from Thad. He slipped a bit, possibly because it was a narrow ledge and there was grass on his undersoles, but more likely because he was having a hard time accommodating his pot belly. Fortunately Alex's arm was there to grasp on to. He steadied himself and rolled over the wall – a new and shiny wall, since the one that had seen 'needlegate' had long since been replaced – and dropped down on the other side. At that point Thaddeus jumped and climbed the rope, meaning that Alex could drop down with some steadying help from Terry, closely followed by Thad.

Teamwork. You couldn't beat it.

The trio ran on to the next obstacle. Here came the beam. The weather had been better in the preceding weeks, since they were into spring and the rain had eased off. The puddle beneath was back to looking like a puddle again, and the wood of the beam was dry. Alex went first, treating the thing with caution as she'd learnt to do. Terry came next, far too confident.

"Slow down! Hurts when you fall off," she called.

He wobbled and held out his arms like a tightrope walker's pole, righted himself and moved on. Thaddeus followed with no problems. From the sidelines there were boos and catcalls when no one entertained the spectators with a dunk in the water.

A hurdle next. "Oh, god, I hate these bloody things," Alex said with a groan as they raced up to it. She remembered the agony in her gut all too vividly. One of her hands was already massaging the remnant of her injury there.

"Me first, then," Thad said. He took the hurdle at a vault, making it look effortless. Then he stood on the other side and held out his hands. "Give the lady a leg-up, Terrence."

Alex smirked, and fitted her trainer into Terry's clasped hands. He lifted her up as she clasped Thad's arms on the opposite side of the hurdle to steady herself. She stepped on to the bar of the hurdle, then jumped down the other side. Nice.

As Terry took the obstacle on with the more classic 'roll' technique, Alex heard Gene boo-ing derisively from the sidelines.

"Oy! I have stomach issues!" she shouted over to him.

Gene pulled at his lower lip in a 'blub-blub' kind of way. She flicked him the V's. His eyes flashed. With any luck he'd remember that later and pretend to be annoyed about it–

"If you're done?" Terry said, as he found his feet.

"Sorry," Alex muttered, putting her more lascivious thoughts on hold for the time being.

The three of them moved on. To the tyres. These were, as it turned out, a lot easier to manage when your legs actually responded to your brain's requests for movement. Alex went first. She danced through the rings and then turned back to wait for her team-mates. Terry tried to emulate her feat. Alas, his coordination wasn't quite so good and he tripped over halfway through, to the appreciative yowls of the rest of CID. He got up and went to start again.

"Steady," Alex told Terry. He followed her advice and made it through the tyres. Thaddeus followed him, more nimble and light on his feet.

Time for the rope-swing. Thad went first. He swung across the shrunken puddle and landed like a pro. Alex followed. Turned out that jumping off and landing was a lot easier when you had a mate to steady you. The two of them waited for Terry. He swung out, but not with enough force. Rather than swing back and try to accentuate the move, he let go anyway and landed right on the edge of the puddle. The splash sprayed both Alex and Thad as they tried to stretch to steady Terry.

Suddenly this Dorking field felt a lot more cold and wet. Still. At least the spectators were entertained. The splash had earned Alex's team their biggest cheer so far.

Rather more bedraggled than they had been, they moved on to the next obstacle: the second hurdle. Again, Thaddeus vaulted it. They had their system just fine, now. The three of them cleared the hurdle as before and moved on.

Here came the climb. Alex eyed the net and felt a twinge in her ankle. She was glad she'd been unconscious when she'd snapped it, if only because she didn't want to have any clear recollection of what that might have sounded like.

There was room for two on the net. Alex and Terry began together, one each side, with Thad calling encouragement from below. She wasn't nearly as fatigued as she'd been the first time around, and made steady progress. Terry fared worse; he was carrying quite a bit more weight than she was. She got to the top with a steadying hand from Mackey. Gene's voice sang out his disapproval from below.

"What's that, DCI Ball-bag?" Mackey yelled down, cupping his ear.

Thaddeus was climbing now. He caught up with Terry and managed to offer encouragement. Together the two of them made it to the top. Terry was breathing hard and red of face. Thad looked like he was having an absolute blast.

Alex took the first zip-slide. She set her grip and pushed off. She whooped, lifted her legs as she came in to land, and rolled nicely in the dry to a smattering of applause. On the other slide Terry was waggling his legs about all over the place as he zipped along. He lacked the abdominal muscles to lift his legs, and they dragged through the water and splashed both him and Alex as she went to help him land. By the time they'd staggered clear, the first slide had been hauled back up to the top and Thad was on his way down. No surprise that he managed his landing just fine.

One last obstacle: the crawl. Alex went first and demonstrated the technique. Terry soon joined her, huffing his way along. Thad dived under when she'd emerged on the other side.

She waited, breathing quite hard now but feeling more exhilarated than anything else. Thad came out ahead of Terry and they both reached a hand down to haul Terry to his feet when he neared the edge.

"Bloody hell, I'm going to have a heart attack," Terry wheezed.

"No you're not," Alex said. She kept a hold of his hand and offered Thad her other one, since – of course – Thad had let Terry go the moment he was able to. Linked like that, the three of them jogged their way up the incline to the finish line, and raised their arms as they crossed it together.

One of Mackey's staffers clicked his stopwatch and made a note of their time. Everyone gave Terry a few minutes to catch his breath, indulging in some good-natured ribbing as he did. Towels were handed around, and Alex was able to dry her hair.

Then they all made their way back to the start, ready for Shaz's team's go.

~~~

As it turned out, when Alex and her team had taken a novel approach to crossing the big hurdles, they'd set a trend.

Shaz, Ray and Bammo drew up to the first hurdle. Ray and Bammo faced each other. They played – for some non-apparent reason – a very swift game of paper-rock-scissors.

"One, two, three - scissors!" said Ray.

"One, two, three - paper!" said Bammo.

"Bollocks," added Bammo. He crouched down on all fours in front of the hurdle.

"Oy!" Gene shouted. "Keep it clean, kiddies!"

The team's approach had clearly been pre-choreographed. Ray held out a hand. Shaz steadied herself on Ray as she stepped up on to Bammo's broad back. Since she weighed about half of what most of the CID lads weighed, Alex figured Bammo's spine wasn't in any danger unless Ray decided to follow suit. Still holding Ray's hand, Shaz was then able to shuffle her backside on to the hurdle's cross-bar, swing her legs over and then slide down.

Everyone applauded as she took a bow. Ray followed Shaz over the hurdle with a vault that looked less effortless than Thad's had done. Bammo got up and adopted the roll technique.

It seemed that the 'competition' had gained another facet. Not just an issue of speed, now. Creativity was a factor too.

At the rope-swing, Bammo – for all his portly physique – got across fine. He caught Shaz as she landed. Ray then let the side down by mistiming his leap from the rope and hitting the water. He immediately adopted his 'I meant to do that' smirk. Alex decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. It was funnier, after all, when the contestants got a bit damp.

At the tower climb, Shaz's technique saw her ascend quite quickly. Bammo struggled. So did Ray, though he pretended that he was slowing down to stay with Bammo. Alex felt a secret shiver of satisfaction and noticed Shaz watching them, then offering her a thumbs-up from the platform. One of the reasons it had felt like such a good idea to get the lads out on this course was to prove that it wasn't as straightforward as it looked.

Shaz's team finished the last obstacles just as bedraggled as Alex's crew had been. The official took their time but refused to comment on how it compared to the first team. There would be a grand reveal right at the end. The official caught Alex's eye and gave a tiny smile.

Ray told everyone that the course was, "A piece o' piss." The redness in his face made a liar of him. Gene slapped him on the back and induced a wheezing coughing fit, which all the lads but Ray found hilarious.

Masculine humour. Some things Alex knew she would never understand.

~~~

Mackey fired the starter's pistol for Gene's team and then nipped off to get himself up to the tower platform. Meanwhile Chris, Gordo and Gene were jogging to the wall.

"Hey, Guv!" Alex shouted.

"Bit busy, Bols!" he shouted back, as Chris nipped up the wall to straddle it and be the 'steadying' man.

"Shoelaces!" she called out.

Gene hesitated as he prepared to give Gordo – the token 'well out of shape' member of his team – a leg up to the ledge. He looked down to check his trainers.

Alex laughed. "Made you look!" she crowed.

Gene offered Alex one of his patented 'just you wait' looks. Shaz nudged Alex's arm.

"You're in trouble now, ma'am," Shaz murmured.

"Oh, god, I hope so," Alex murmured back. Shaz chuckled.

Gene's team moved on to the beam. Chris skipped across. Gordo got halfway, moving too fast, obviously trying hard not to be the man who let the Guv down. His desire for speed cost him his balance and he slipped off the beam and hit the puddle, arse first.

"Ow," Alex said on his behalf. Beside her, Shaz winced. The rest of the lads were hooting with laughter.

To Gene's credit, he strode straight into the puddle without flinching and helped Gordo up again. Then they returned to the beam and Gordo tried again. Taking things more sedately, he got himself across. Gene followed.

Alex shouted, "Hey, Gordo, welcome to the arse-over-tit club! We don't let just anyone in, you know!" Gordo gave her a wave.

And then came the moment they'd been waiting for: the first hurdle. How would this group approach the obstacle?

Gene went first, vaulting the thing without breaking a sweat in spite of being one of the older participants in this exercise. He'd probably imagined some scumbag getting away on the other side; in such situations he always moved faster and with greater agility than his years and physique would otherwise have suggested.

Alex wolf-whistled. Gene glanced her way. He smoothed a hand over his hair, which he then shook as if starring in a shampoo advert.

Meanwhile Chris had placed a foot in Gordo's hands and waited for a lift up. He leaned in to the hurdle, his own hands flat on the bar. Gordo lifted. And then he guided, and steadied, and the next thing Alex knew, Chris was standing on his hands on the cross-bar of the hurdle.

The spectators all broke into spontaneous applause. Chris's handstand tilted past the vertical until he was falling on the other side of the hurdle, where Gene waited to catch him. Chris kept his body straight, Gene took his weight, and Chris made it down safely. Gordo then followed the others over with a more traditional roll, made all the more entertaining because it took him a few goes to get his leg up.

"You got lovely form, there, baby!" Shaz called out. Chris turned as they all moved on to the next obstacle and blew her a kiss.

They made it through the tyres without incident, then came the rope-swing. Gene sent Gordo first, probably because he was the team member most likely to land badly and cause a splash. Gordo proved otherwise when he swung, leapt and landed just fine. Chris followed, calling out like Tarzan as he swung. It was the way he was focused on playing to the crowd that was his downfall, because he mistimed his release and splashed down heavily in the puddle.

"Y'okay, baby?" Shaz called over.

Chris straightened his shoulders and flicked some of the sprayed water out of his hair. "Just going for the rugged look," he called back.

Alex was too busy watching Gene reach for the rope, swing out and leap clear. She made a low rumbling noise in her throat that sounded suspiciously like the kind of noise Ray sometimes made when looking at page three girls.

"Him Tarzan, you Jane?" Shaz suggested.

Alex just shook her head. "We should've made the boys do this in loincloths."

Shaz looked at Chris and made the same rumbling noise. They smirked at each other and moved on along the course.

When Gene's team reached the net climb to the tower, Alex detected a note of fatigue creeping into his performance. Gene was fine – impressive, even – with short bursts of energy, but his age and lifestyle made stamina more of an issue. He looked like he was starting to struggle as he hauled himself up the net.

Chris reached the top. Shaz yelled, "Well done, babes!" Chris waved.

Alex shouted, "Keep going, Guv! Just a bit more!"

Behind her, Ray sniggered and said, "Yeah, that's what she told him last night, n' all."

She looked over her shoulder. "Do I have to knee you in the knackers, Carling?"

He held up his hands. "Sorry, ma'am."

Gene reached the tower platform and was not averse to grabbing on to Mackey's helping hand up. They then went to assist Gordo over the last few feet.

Chris took the first slide down. Like Thad earlier, he seemed to be having a whale of a time. He curled up as the slide neared the touchdown pool, and rolled clear.

Alex's eyes were on Gene. "Don't forget to lift your legs!" she yelled. At that point it felt like an in-joke.

Gene hurtled down the slide. He managed to lift his legs only partially, and created a bit of spray. Chris went to help him as he rolled clear. Gordo was bombing down by that time, and managed to distract from Gene's less than pristine touchdown by coming in to land with a wild plough through the water, like an inebriated duck after a very tiring flight home from the duck-tavern.

The three of them staggered off to do the crawl, reappeared red of face and panting on the other side of the netting, and then stumbled up the incline to the finish.

Alex cheered along with the rest of the CID team. At some point, she realised, the exercise had stopped being quite so competitive for the lads. Maybe – just maybe – those corporate team-building day-outs that the future had in store weren't entirely absurd after all.

~~~

Later that evening, warm against another body on her sofa, Alex took a strand of her hair and sniffed it.

"I still smell like bloody champagne," she said. This, after she'd washed her hair twice: once in the showers in the outdoor pursuits centre and once when she'd got home. "How does that work?"

"You'll smell worse next week if we're really going down in them sewers."

"Disused sewers. Don't worry about it – I've got it all mapped out."

"Fine." Gene nuzzled into her hair. "Anyway, I like it."

"You do?"

"Yeah. I'm used to you smelling like a brewery. Old wino Drakey–"

"Piss off!"

"Me? I'm going nowhere till I've had my massage."

Alex frowned and then twisted on the sofa so she could look at him. "You want a massage?"

"You're bloody right I do. Not all of us were assault course veterans there, today. Used muscles I forgot I had."

"Hmm. And you looked good doing it too."

"Yeah, I heard you whistling. Shameless bloody hussy."

"So now you want a massage."

"Turnabout's fair play. Two ruddy nights you spent moaning like a porn star. Sent me home wi' a raging lob-on."

"Ah. You want a massage with some executive relief."

Gene arched a brow. He said, without any hint of apology, "Good chance that'll happen whether you want it to or not."

She snorted. "You know, those two nights weren't exactly calm and composed for me either."

"I remember. Back o' the knees. You squirmed like a good'n."

"Yeah, well, I could've done with a happy ending then myself."

"You only had to ask."

"I was working up to it. Timing was important."

"Speaking o' timing..." He gave her a small glare.

"What?"

"How," Gene asked, "in the name of bollocks, do three teams of three people manage to get identical times on an assault course?"

She'd been waiting for this. Alex smirked. "And to the second, too."

"Think I covered that with 'identical'."

"Yeah. Very odd, wasn't it? Quite a coincidence."

"Almost unbelievable," Gene agreed. "Since my own watch had your time down as about half a minute faster than Shaz's team."

"Your watch must be wrong," she said flatly.

"Or you bribed the race official."

"Me?" Alex contrived a wounded look. "I'm the Met's poster-girl for fairness, didn't you know?"

Gene rolled his eyes. "Fine. Just a coincidence."

"Come on, we let your team win on the hurdle thing. Even though your lot had a big advantage."

"How did we have an advantage? We didn't have a bird!"

"You had Chris; I doubt he weighs much more than I do. And your team had the longest time to think something up."

"Well your team started it."

" _I_ didn't want to hurt my tum. Bad memories."

"Oh. Poor Alex." Gene sneaked an arm between them and found a way inside her dressing gown. "Everything okay there now?"

"Mmm. Getting better by the second." Alex smiled and dropped a kiss on his mouth. "So...a good day out?"

"Not bad at all, Bols."

"For the record? You had a krypton factor of ten."

"Oh yeah?" His hand was sneaking lower. "Did I win, then?"

"You definitely won a massage. Where does it hurt?"

"Oh, god, everywhere."

Alex smiled. "Okay. Let's go and see if I can't make it all better."

She stood up from the sofa and held out a hand which Gene accepted.

"Course," he said, "when I say 'everywhere'..." He arched a brow.

Alex shrugged a shoulder. "Mainly your penis?"

"Funny you should mention."

Alex rolled her eyes. Gene smirked, and let her pull him to his feet. And in the quiet of the London evening, she led him through the flat to the bedroom.

~~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on my LJ/Dreamwidth journals in 2010. This version is updated.


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